Paula's Prodigious Pavlova

Ok well its not really mine it's Nigellas but I am sure she won't mind! I am a big meringue fan, I love seeing it in any form on a menu and I never have a celebration in my house without serving it. This version I think though is my favourite. Gorgeous marshmallow textured meringue, softly whipped cream and some berries. So simple but yet impressive. It's easy to get a pavlova wrong but this is simple, promise!

Ingredients

8 large egg whites
500g caster sugar
4tsp corn flour
2tsp white wine vinegar
1/2tsp vanilla extract

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees
Whisk egg whites until soft peaks form
Add in sugar 1 tablespoon at a time until stiff
Fold in with a metal spoon the cornflour, vinegar and vanilla gently until combined
Draw a 20cm circle on parchment and use as guideline to spoon meringue onto
Smooth top and sides with a palette knife
Place in oven and immediately drop temperature to 120 degrees
Leave for 1 hour and allow to cool fully in oven

To decorate

300ml cream
Selection of berries
Few mint leaves

Softly whip the cream and spread over the cooled meringue base
Decorate with berries of your choice, I used a punnet of blueberries and a punnet of blackberries
Arrange the mint leaves for a extra dash of colour
Slice, eat, sigh in that order! Heavenly!

Crunchy Oaty Cookies

Thought I might have lost my mojo but thankfully yesterday I found it! Its hard to find the time to fit everything in but keeping my blog is something that I love to do and I am determined to find a hour a week to publish a post! Christmas and a lovely holiday in Fuerteventura have all combined in helping me gain a few unwanted excess pounds so I am trying to avoid too many sweet treats but all work and no play makes for a very dull Paula! I love a bowl of porridge to get me started of a morning and my favourite topping is brown sugar so I thought I would make a cookie version. Very simple to throw together and delicious with a cuppa.

Ingredients

8oz butter
8oz brown sugar
8oz self raising flour
8oz porridge oats
2 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp orange juice

Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees and grease two baking trays.
Melt butter, sugar and golden syrup in a saucepan over a medium heat.
Turn off heat and add in oats, flour and juice, combine well.
Place tablespoons of mixture on greased baking trays, leaving room to spread.
Bake for 20 minutes or until golden.

These cookies are so gorgeous, perfect to keep my sweet tooth at bay without reaching for a slab of cake. Isaac is 4 this weekend though so there will be cake slabs aplenty demolished I am sure!