I hesitate before reprinting a recipe I’ve published before but after writing about chocolate pavlova, I couldn’t resist a quick return to the passion-fruit pavlova in How To Eat. It’s just that, in all honesty, I couldn’t contemplate a summer without it. There is something about the mixture between sugary marshmallow-bellied meringue, soft cream and pippy, fragrantly astringent fruit that works too well for me to ignore it now.
Follow the method for meringue base, using 4 egg whites, 250g caster sugar, 2 teaspoons cornflour (which you add as you do the cocoa), and a teaspoon of white vinegar along with a few drops of pure vanilla extract. Mound into a 21cm round on the parchment-lined baking sheet and put into the same, 180°C/gas mark 4 oven, turning the heat down immediately to 150°C/gas mark 2, cooking exactly as for the chocolate version. Once cooled, invert likewise, this time covering with 300ml of whipped double cream and the juicy pulp of 10 scooped-out passionfruits; this slightly smaller pav will feed 6–8.