The Pavlova

Two reasons why I wanted to make Gourmet's three-layer berry and brown sugar pavlova:

1. They begin the recipe with: "By its very nature, a Pavlova is a little wild."

2. It seemed like a perfect 4th of July dessert (because it's red, white and blue, not because it's named after Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova or that it's an important part of the national cuisine of both Australia and New Zealand).

Let's compare...

Gourmet's version:

We wanted to make our version a little more American:

OK, our version, for realz:
(This makes our non-successes feel like ancient memories.)

So, my mom's in town visiting and we've got to thank her for buying us a third cake pan, which made this recipe way more efficient and workable. (The meringue bakes for one hour and then cools for one hour in the pan, so it really would've slowed us down to have to wait.)

And while we're thanking my mom, thanks again for the second-hand KitchenAid, as this meringue called for about 7 minutes of beating, 5 of which were on high speed.

The mixture was like nothing I'd ever worked with before -- almost like a sturdier, brown sugary version of marshmallow fluff.

And let's thank Whole Foods for stocking amazing locally-grown strawberries:

Check it out--mother/daughter mashing up some berries.

We whipped the cream and then all that was left was the assembly.

Not exaggerating, I think this was my favorite dessert we've made to date. It was so airy and refreshing yet chewy and completely satisfying.

I think my mom sums up our efforts brilliantly.