Alex Hollywood’s strawberry rose petal, and pistachio pavlova
Alex says “This is a slight Middle Eastern take on one of my favourite puddings. Lashings of sweetened cream flavoured with a dash of rose water, loaded onto a huge sticky meringue round, filled with fresh halved Sweet Eve strawberries, topped with crushed pistachios and fragrant rose petals – it’s like summer on a plate!”
Author: Alex Hollywood
Serves: 8
Ingredients
- 6 large egg whites
- 250g caster sugar
- 1 tsp rose water extract
- 1 tsp white wine vinegar
- 1 tsp cornflour
- 100g crushed pistachios
- 475ml double cream
- 1 tbsp icing sugar
- 450g Sweet Eve strawberries cut in half (keep 3-4 whole strawberries to garnish)
- handful of pale pink rose petals
Method
- Line a baking sheet and pre heat the oven to 180C/Gas4.
- Whisk the egg whites in a large bowl until stiff peaks form, then slowly add the sugar, rose water, vinegar, cornflour and whisk again until the mix becomes very thick and shiny.
- Gently fold in half of the pistachios then carefully spoon the mixture onto the lined baking sheet, forming a circle and working the mixture outwards to form an edge and leaving a slight dip in the centre.
- Bake at 150C/Gas2 for one hour, then turn off the oven, leaving the meringue in there to cool. If you have time, make the meringue the night before, and leave it in the cooling oven overnight. The parchment should pull away easily now and you can place the meringue on a plate.
- Whip the cream, adding in the icing sugar, and spread generously over the cooled meringue. Scatter the strawberries over the top, arrange the whole strawberries in the centre, sprinkle with the rest of the pistachios and finally scatter with the rose petals and serve.
- www.sweetevestrawberry.co.uk
