Lemon Pavlova

For Easter we had a lemon pavlova inspired by the one Mary Berry made of course

We started with frozen egg whites I've been saving--especially during the covid quarantine--these become extra precious materials to store up for later use

For a change I tried making some smaller meringue blobs to adorn the top in order to create more stability to the decoration. I'm partly practicing for a wedding cake I might make in the coming months, so the less I have to rely upon everything working out in mere moments the better

I have had good success with Ina Garten's lemon curd, so I went with that recipe to pair with the pavlova.

Ingredients

3 lemons

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/4 pound unsalted room temperature butter

4 whole eggs

1/2 cup lemon juice (3 to 4 lemons)

1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

zest 3 lemons, being careful to avoid the white pith, and mix with sugar

cream the butter and then add sugar/zest lemon mixture

add the eggs one at a time, and then add the lemon juice and salt

put the mixture into a 2 quart saucepan and cook over low heat until thickened (about 10 minutes), stirring constantly, it thickens at about 170 degrees F

refrigerate

I thought I might have overdone it with two layers and a generous helping of curd between each (and much leftover) but I do think more is more and next time would increase the amount of curd. The tartness plays well with the thick whipped cream and sweet crunch and marshmallow of the meringue wreath

I piped some lemon curd and whipped cream together hoping to see more of a swirl, but that didn't happen. Next time it might be nice to use yellow dye to create that stripe in either the whipped cream or even tiny meringues

I had a few little hands trying to help. Discipline and cooking don't go well together I'm finding, and it's oh so tempting to taste everything and then the sugared lemon peel topping goes missing in little tummies!

I did try to employ their help with picking kale flowers from the garden (don't throw the plant away when it bolts, these little flowers are delicious and beautiful!) and some strands of thyme

These spindly tall antique candles I found have become my favorite way to adorn our celebratory special occasion creations--and what child doesn't like an excuse to practice their birthday candle blowing technique?