A Cake as Light and Airy as a Ballerina

As a continuation of postings for Steve's birthday, I have to add this recipe for Pavlova, which served as his birthday cake. The Pavlova was named for the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova when she was on tour in New Zealand and Australia in the 1920s. It seems a very appropriate cake to be named for a ballerina, as it is made of meringue, thus very light and delicate. To this day, debate continues as to which nation gets to claim the dessert as its original invention (according to Wikipedia, New Zealand is the rightful claimant). I found this recipe at the Joy of Cooking website (listed on the sidebar of our blog). It turned out to be a bit of a challenge. To learn why, read on.

Pavlova
Meringue Cake
4 large egg whites
1 cup superfine caster sugar (I used regular granulated white sugar)
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1/2 tablespoon cornstarch

Topping
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
fresh fruit (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, etc.)

Preheat oven to 250 degrees and place rack in center of oven. Line baking sheet with parchment paper and draw a 7-inch circle on the paper, like so:
With electric mixer, beat eggs on high until they hold soft peaks. Add sugar one tablespoon at a time until the meringue holds very stiff peaks. (Test to see if the sugar is fully dissolved by rubbing a little of the meringue between your thumb and index finger. The meringue should feel smooth, not gritty. If it feels gritty, keep on beating.) So the egg whites and sugar mixture should go from this:

To this:
It took me quite a while to get all the sugar dissolved, probably because I just used granulated white sugar instead of the caster sugar. If you don't want your arm to be exhausted by the end of this process, I suggest going for the caster sugar. Next, sprinkle the vinegar and cornstarch on top of the meringue and fold in with a rubber spatula. Gently spread the meringue inside the circle drawn on the parchment paper, smoothing the sides and making them higher than the middle so you have a place to put your whipped cream and fruit later. Bake for one hour and 15 minutes, until the outside is dry and it takes on a very pale cream color. Turn the oven off and leave the door slightly open. Let the meringue cool completely in the oven.

This where I had some difficulty. I really don't know why this happened, but at some point while the meringue was cooling in the oven, the middle fell in, like this:
I was quite disappointed, but we still made it work. I still don't know what happened though. I guess you shouldn't really expect things to come out perfectly when you try them for the first time, especially this cake, which seems like a chemistry project, with all the changes in form and matter.

After the cake is cooled, place it on a serving plate. Then, to make the topping, beat the cream with the electric mixer until soft peaks form. Add the sugar and the vanilla and then mound on top of the meringue cake. Decorate with the fresh fruit however you wish. Serve soon as the cake will not hold for much longer than a few hours.

Here's the happy birthday boy with the finished product:
(You can find the original recipe here: http://www.joyofbaking.com/Pavlova.html)