Extreme Late-Summer Pavlova

and more about fruit

This has been the summer of fruit. Birdy’s lovely friend Illia has been living with us, and she has brought so much joy into our household: more laughing, more swimming, more love for the cats, more protein, more fruiiiiiit. SO MUCH FRUIT. Omg. I basically start every day by cutting up enormous melons or juicing them. We’ve been eating plums and peaches and cherries by the gallon. Earlier in the season, we picked quarts and quarts of strawberries and then blueberries.

Do you ever just like to hover over a flat of blueberries, shedding into them and falling into a weird trance?

I had to submit this photograph in support of my application to be the bougiest person who ever lived. Cukes, peaches, tomatoes, pistachios, burrata, hello, just me serving everyone a plated ombre dinner like a bad bitch! I made a basil vinaigrette that was just basil, garlic, white wine vinegar, salt, and oo whizzed up in the blender and it was so good. Oh also a tiny drizzle of hot honey (honey microwaved with chili flakes) because INFLUENCER.

Michael and I just got back from book touring in California (epic) and the fruit there, my god. We ate this:

This is on the Marin side of the Golden Gate Bridge, where everyone sells fruit cups with Tajin and chamoy and also grilled hot dogs. Like, 20 concession stands and they all sell those 2 things. Why? Anyhoo, it was so good that I can’t stop thinking about it.

And this:

At Tartine in San Francisco omg. It was 1 centimeter wide and cost $1000. Thank you HarperCollins, ha ha ha!

Which inspired this when we got home:

We picked the blackberries by the very cold Swift River where we were swimming and freezing half to death. If you know Jane Yolen’s exquisite Letting Swift River Go, yes, it is this actual same Swift River!

Which, thanks to the creme pat, left me with exactly 4 egg whites so that I could make the aforepictured pavlova, which is not even the first pavlova I made this summer.

It seems crazy to say that pavlova is easy? Because it has multiple components and also fruit (having fruit in the house still makes me feel like I’m part of the 1%) and it does require you to turn the oven on. But it is actually kind of easy?

And it’s basically the most joyful, celebratory thing I’ve ever made in my life. Bringing it to the table feels like a vote of confidence in the world, and then you can go watch the Olympics full of fruit and cream, and you can experience your true American birthright, which is a quadrennial burst of gymnastic patriotism and expertise.

Extreme Late-Summer Pavlova

You can make the meringue and curd ahead of time, and you can prep the fruit. But you’ll need to whip the cream and assemble this just before serving, which will only take a few minutes. If your fruit [spell check really wants this to be “If you’re fruit” which is making me lol] is not that sweet, you have a couple of options: sweeten the whipped cream a little more; sweeten the passion fruit curd a little more; or stir a little sugar into the fruit, but near to serving so that the fruit doesn’t turn into a total soupy mess.

You’ll need:

1 completely cooled giant meringue, peeled off of the parchment (if it’s humid, keep it in the oven until the minute you’re ready to assemble)

1 recipe passionfruit curd (This is a real gilding-the-lily ingredient, and it’s totally optional. You could use a different kind of curd or skip it entirely.)

Lightly sweetened whipped cream

2 or more cups of fruit: raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, pitted cherries, sliced strawberries, diced peaches, nectarines, plums, mangoes—all one kind or a combination

Put the meringue on cake stand or serving platter, and use the back of soup spoon to tap the middle in, leaving a rim around the edge and making a nest for the filling. The whole thing may kind of break apart? And it honestly doesn’t matter. The whipped cream will hold it together. Spoon the curd into the nest and spread it with the back of a spoon, then pile in the whipped cream and top with the fruit and the fruit’s juice if there is any, unless it’s a lot of juice, then just use a little of it. Prepare to be adored.

Giant Meringue
This is just a slight tweaking of the meringue from Nigella Lawson’s NYT Strawberry Pavlova recipe, but I use a little less sugar (and it’s not superfine) and also bake it at a slightly lower temperature. How do you know when it’s done? is a reasonable question you might have, but honestly I just set a timer. It’s weirdly forgiving: it might be a little more or less chewy or tender in the middle, and I honestly like it every which way.

4 cold egg whites

Pinch of salt

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and draw a circle on the paper by tracing an 8- or 9- inch cake pan with a pencil. Flip the parchment over so the tracing is facing down (so no pencil gets on the meringue). If the parchment is wanting to curl up, use fridge magnets to hold it down for now—just remember to remove them before baking, grimace emoji.

Add the egg whites and salt to the bowl of an electric mixer. Using the whisk attachment, beat them at low speed to start and slowly increase the speed to high. Beat until satiny peaks begin to form (I don’t know what this is really, but it doesn’t seem to matter that much) then add the sugar, a tablespoon at a time, until the meringue is stiff and shiny. I take the bowl out of the machine and make sure I can tip it upside down. Probably I learned this from the Great British Bakeoff, since I have English-flavored criticism in my head as I do it (“It’s a bit claggy.” ).

Sprinkle in the cornstarch, vinegar, and vanilla, and fold it all together gently with a rubber spatula. Mound it onto the parchment within the circle, and nudge it to the edges into a domed cake shape. Place it in the oven, and immediately reduce the heat to 275 degrees. Bake it for 1 hour and15 minutes (it will likely be crusty and cream- or golden-colored, maybe cracked, with a chewy or slight tender middle), then turn off the heat, and let it cool completely in the oven. Put a piece of tape over the oven controls so that nobody will start preheating the oven while it’s in there unless you like to live dangerously or live with the kind of people who don’t know how to turn the oven on anyways.

Passionfruit Curd
To reiterate: this is a completely unnecessary addition, but it takes just around 5 minutes to make and is outrageously tangy, fragrant, and delicious. I know that curd usually has egg yolks in it—and wouldn’t that be perfect, given the whites you need for the meringue?—but I often find it kind of eggy? Or even almost metallic? So I like this style better, which is basically more like pudding.

1/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1/3 cup coconut milk (or a different nondairy milk or water)

1/3 cup passion fruit juice or puree (I buy this as frozen cubes from Whole Foods and thaw it in the microwave; the brand is Pitaya)

1 tablespoon butter

Whisk together the sugar and cornstarch, then whisk these into the coconut milk and passion fruit puree in a small pot. Heat over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture thickens. You’ll think it’s not going to, but it will and you’ll know when it does—it probably takes around 5 minutes. Turn the heat off, whisk in the butter, then put the curd in the fridge to cool and then get completely cold. I put it in a lidded glass container with a piece of paper towel underneath the lid to grab the condensation.

Lightly Sweetened Whipped Cream
Probably you know how to make whipped cream! But here’s this anyways.

1 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Add the cream to the bowl of an electric mixer. Using the whisk attachment, beat on low and gradually increase the heat to high. Once the cream looks like it’s thickening, add the sugar and vanilla and beat just until it’s thick enough to hold peaks. It will go from perfect to buttery (in a bad way) in just a heartbeat, so watch it like a fucking hawk.