hey guys welcome back to another baking tutorial and if you're new here welcome
I am Bettie I am a baking instructor over at BakerBettie.com
and here on this YouTube channel now today we are going to learn how to make
a pavlova and this is part of our meringue series we are learning all
about the different methods of how to make meringue and then I'm sharing a few
different recipes with you that use those meringues so today we are going to
make a pavlova and if you aren't familiar with that it's a really large
baked meringue shell it gets really crispy on the outside and then it's kind
of soft and marshmallowy in the middle and then it's typically topped with a
soft whipped cream and then some kind of sauce it can be a fruit sauce or a
ganache or really anything you want so today we are going to make a chocolate
ganache to top our pavlova and then we'll add some fresh raspberries on top
so to make a pavlova we are going to use the French meringue technique and if you
remember from our first meringue video where we talked about all of the
different methods the French meringue technique is the easiest technique to
make so you want to start by separating your eggs with any meringue recipe you
need egg whites to start with and we need to be really careful that we don't
get yolk in our egg whites otherwise our meringue is not going to whip up to
stiff peaks so I'm going to start by separating my eggs now every time I
separate eggs I like to have three bowls so one bowl is to crack my egg in and
then the other two bowls are to put my whites and yolks in I don't like to
separate my eggs right over the bowl where I'm keeping my whites because if I
accidentally break a yolk that yolk is going to contaminate all of the whites
so I just crack my egg right into One Bowl and then I use clean hands to go
ahead and pick the yolk up out of the way
and then I gotta put the yolk in one bowl and then I'm going to put the
whites in my other bowl so this way if I do break a yolk I'm not putting that
yolk all into the whites that I've already separated so this works really
well with cold eggs it's easier to separate with cold eggs but you do want
your whites to be at room temperature when you go to whip them into stiff
peaks so if you separate your eggs while they're cold you want to let the whites
sit for about thirty minutes or so now these eggs are already at room
temperature so we're not going to have to wait all right and that is all of the
whites that we need now I'll put these yolks aside these yolks can be saved to
use in a custard or if we're gonna make a lemon meringue pie later in this
series so you could keep the yolks to use in a filling for a meringue pie or
something like that okay so to start the meringue for our pavlova we're going to
start with just our egg whites along with some cream of tartar and a pinch of
salt and some vanilla right in our mixing bowl now the cream of tartar is
an acidic ingredient and that's going to help kind of stabilize the meringue so
if you don't have cream of tartar you can substitute it for a little bit of
lemon juice but it's going to help keep our meringue really stable so that it
holds into a really nice pavlova shell so we want to start whipping our egg
whites on about medium speed with the whisk attachment of your mixer until
they're starting to hold some soft peaks and you need to do that before you add
any of your sugar if you start adding your sugar too early when you make your
meringue it won't hold as well it'll start kind of weeping some liquid so you
want to make sure they get really whipped before you start adding the
sugar so I'm going to whip these and I'll show you what it looks like when
you can go ahead and start adding your sugar
okay so I want to show you what this looks like when you're ready to add your
sugar so the egg whites are really starting to hold some air and they're
very very soft but you can tell that there's air whipped into them and so now
we can go ahead and add our sugar now one of the most important parts when you
make a French meringue is that the sugar needs to be added very very slowly this
not only ensures that it completely dissolved into your egg whites but it
makes sure that the meringue is super stable so I'm going to spoon my sugar in
just about one spoonful at a time and wait about 10 to 15 seconds or so
between each addition and let that mix before I add more I'm going to do this
on medium speed and then when all of the sugar is added we can go ahead and
crease the speed and make sure that gets to really stiff peaks so I'm going to
turn this on and add the sugar
okay so all of the sugar has been added and I want to show you this has really
gotten a lot thicker you can see the peaks are stiffer but they're still not
completely stiff so we are going to continue mixing this I'm going to go
ahead and increase the speed up to high and let that whip until we get really
really stiff peaks
so you can stop periodically and check to see how your Peaks are you just want
to pull this up and see if they're standing up tall that's pretty good it
is kind of drooping just a little bit I'm probably gonna whip this just a
little bit longer but we're getting very very close see where at and I think
that's looking pretty good those are pretty stiff peaks so we can
go ahead and take our pavlova and shape it into the shell now the last thing
we're going to do before we shape our shell is I have a little bit of
cornstarch here and I'm just going to sprinkle that over the top of the
meringue and this is going to give it a little bit more stability since we are
baking such a large shell we're not making those little cookies like we did
in our last video we want it to be really stable so I'm just going to fold
that cornstarch in and to fold you want to cut down through the meringue and
bring the meringue that's on the bottom up to the top just be really gentle
because we don't want to deflate it okay so I have a sheet pan lined with a piece
of parchment paper and to make our shell we are just going to mound this up all
in one big mound on the middle of the parchment paper and then I'm going to
show you how to shape it to make it look really beautiful now we are going to try
to shape this a little bit inspired by a pavlova that Zoey Francois from Zoey
bakes has posted before it's just it's a little bit different than a traditional
pavlova it's a little taller and I just think it looks really beautiful so we're
gonna try it out okay so once it's all mounded up we're gonna kind of smooth it
out into one big circular kind of anthill looking
mound
if you want to do more of a traditional pavlova you can you'll kind of spread it
out thinner but this is going to be like a really tall pavlova show so now we're
gonna give a little bit of an indentation right in the center to kind
of be the place where all of our toppings are gonna lay so we're gonna
add some really soft whipped cream and some ganache and then berries I'm
actually gonna scoop a little bit out so we're gonna making that little place for
all of that to sit okay so I'm just going to clean up the edges a little bit
and then we are going to use the offset spatula to make a pretty decorative
crust on it okay so now we're going to take our offset spatula and we're going
to use it to just swipe up around the edges
to give it a really pretty decorative look and I kind of lost my Center there
a little bit I'm going to kind of get that back okay so now we are going to
bake this at a really low temperature we're gonna put it in the oven at 250
degrees for about 90 minutes and then we're gonna shut the oven off and just
leave it to sit in there until it's completely cool so whenever you're
baking a meringue you don't want to open the oven that change of temperature and
letting heat out can really mess up the meringue and make it crack a lot so
we're gonna leave it in the oven try not to open the door and then when it's
completely cooled we will make our toppings for it okay so our pavlova
shell is completely finished it sat in the oven for a few hours and it has
completely cooled it's really nice and crisp and so you want to make your
toppings right before you are going to serve it so I'm gonna make a really
simple chocolate ganache and I have just some broken up pieces of chocolate here
you can use chocolate chips instead if that's what you have and then I have
some really hot heavy cream so I'm going to pour the cream just right over this
chocolate and I'm going to let it sit for a few minutes to let the chocolate
melt and then I'll come back and whisk it up now while that chocolate is
melting I'm going to go ahead and whip some cream so I have some really cold
heavy cream here whenever you're making whipped cream your cream needs to be
cold or it will not whip up so I'm just going to add that to my stand mixer with
my whisk attachment and I'm going to start whipping that
so I like to add to my whipped cream just a little bit of vanilla extract
I'm not even measuring it I'm just going to eyeball it and I like to add a little
pinch of salt just to kind of help balance the sweetness because I'm also
going to add a little bit of powdered sugar now you can make whipped cream
without any sugar at all but I like to add just a couple tablespoons I like it
just slightly sweet but you can do the sugar to taste
okay and that's where I'm going to stop whipping it it's much softer than what
we were going for with the meringue and we'll go ahead and set that aside for a
second and then we're going to come back to our ganache so it's been enough time
now that that chocolate should be completely melted so I'm just going to
take a little whisk here and I'm going to gently start right in the center of
the bowl and just start making small little circles and as the chocolate
starts incorporating into the cream then I can start moving out to the edges of
the bowl and that's it that's really all ganache is I am gonna put a little pinch
of salt in here again just to balance the sweetness but ganache is just melted
chocolate with cream that's it super super easy to make okay so I did
let the ganache cool just to slightly so that it wasn't quite so runny and now we
can go ahead and assemble our pavlova so I have just a little cake stand here
going to transfer the shell right on top it's very delicate so be gentle with it
and I'm going to start with ganache so I'm going to put a decent amount right
in the center so that it's kind of a little surprised when you cut into it
and I'm going to drip a little bit over the sides just to give it that decadent
look okay now I'm going to pile up some of the soft whipped cream right on top
and finish it off with some fresh berries I have some raspberries here and
then I'll do a few sprigs of mint just for some color and then when you cut
into this to serve it you could always have a few more fresh berries and a
little more whipped cream or chocolate on the side if people want that and that
is it there's our beautiful pavlova all ready to be served and if you have not
seen the other videos in the meringue series I'm going to leave a link down in
the description box for the entire playlist coming up in the series we are
going to be doing a lemon meringue pie and then we're also going to show you
how to make macarons so stay tuned for those other videos in this series and if
you aren't already subscribed go ahead and hit that subscribe button and ring
the notification belt so you never miss a baking lesson and if you like this
video go ahead and give it a thumbs up I'm always happy to answer any of your
questions so you can leave those down in the comment section and I'll see you all
next time with another baking tutorial