The Sun has Gone

Not just to bed, but forever it seems, replaced by our more usual summer weather: rain. Oh well. I'm not going to complain. We've had more beautiful weather in the past few weeks than I've experienced in the whole ten years I've been living in Ireland and Northern Ireland! And, knowing how fleeting the sun might prove, we managed to pack a lot of summer fun into those weeks, including BBQs, picnics, beach outings, cycles, walks, trips to the zoo, and about a million pieces of this:

Pavlova! I ate my first piece of pavlova on a holiday to Zimbabwe in 2007, and it entered ever after into the annals of epic desserts: deliciously light and airy, it manages to be both decadent and virtuous at the same time. It's the perfect summer sweet - not dense enough to tip you over the edges of excess after plates of burgers, hot dogs, and potato salad, but just sweet enough to finish things off nicely. I love mixing a little bit of lemon curd in with the whipped cream to give a tiny tang, but the purists amongst us (read: hubby) prefer straight cream topped with fruit. It's perfection either way!

For this one, I used Mary Berry's recipe for the meringue base and topped it with softly whipped cream and as many fresh strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries as would stay on top. Delish! It possibly wasn't the most picturesque pavlova, but I should add that quite a few of those cracks in the meringue were exaggerated by taste-testing! Hubby said he had to do a bit of quality control before we brought the pavlova to the BBQ we were attending. Hmmmm. Anyway, it was a huge hit at the BBQ, and we managed to gobble up every last crumb while we soaked in as much sun as we possibly could. A perfect summer evening, made all the more memorable and precious in the knowledge that it could be quite some time before we have the next one!!

 xx Tina

Comments

  1. Sarah1 August 2013 at 19:02

    The sun has not gone away forever! How dare you. It is just raining to water our gardens and then mr sunshine will be back. Either I'm living in hope or just desperate for the sun to shine when I finally get one time off work to enjoy it!! Delish pavlova. I always use Mary Barry's recipe too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sew Thrifty Fi2 August 2013 at 07:17

    I agree with Sarah.. Sun is hiding for a while! I use nigellas 8egg recipe! It's massive!! How r u and ur wee girl?? X

    ReplyDelete

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