I don’t care how 80’s anyone thinks this is, one of my standard puds which is always well received is our friend, the pavlova.

Here’s my fail safe method:

Ingredients:

4/3/2 fresh free range eggs

250g/187.5g/125g white sugar

1tsp/0.5 vanilla extract

1tsp/0.5 cornflour

1tsp/0.5 white wine vinegar

Method:

Preheat oven to 140 degrees (130 fan)

Separate your eggs and in a very clean bowl, whisk your egg whites until they increase significantly in volume, become white and when you stop, they stand in what is known as a ‘stiff peak’, i.e. the little mountains that appear when you take the whisk out are left standing upright and do not sag.Add in your 250 g of white sugar and continue to whisk, I have always been told to use caster sugar but frequently use granulated when there is no caster in the larder and it works absolutely perfectly so do not worry about that.When the sugar is amalgamated into the egg white well, add the remaining three ingredients and whisk for a further 30 seconds or so.Using a medium size dinnerplate as a template, draw a circle on a sheet of greaseproof paper and place onto a flat baking sheet, pen side down.Using a palette knife, make a layer of the meringue mix in your circle with about 2/3 of the mixture. It really does not matter how rough it looks.With the remaining mixture, use to spoons and make little blobs around the outside to form your classic Pavlova shape.Place straight into a pre heated oven at 140° for an hour. When the hour is up, just turn the oven off and leave the meringue in there. It will continue to cook just a little more and dry out to be lovely and crisp.How long you leave it is entirely up to you and depends on your circumstances and when you need it. It works well to make in the morning for dinner that night, or make the night before for lunch the next day. It also keeps really well so you could do it several days in advance and keep in a sealed tin.When you are ready to make up your pavlova, fill with a cream whipped with icing sugar and a splash of vanilla extract then cover in as much fresh fruit as you can fit on. Finally dust with icing sugar and there you have it.Stunning.