Eggstravaganza

The other day we made a key lime pie, which calls for egg yolks only. Since I hate to waste, I simply HAD to make another dessert using the egg whites. And the rest of the whipped cream. You know; purely in the effort of being a more conscientious human being. Waste not, want not!

A perfect choice was a Pavlova. What is a Pavlova you ask? Its a meringue topped with fruit and jam, and whipped cream. Easy to make, delicious to eat, and pretty to see.

There are a few tricks to making meringue. First of all you need room temperature egg whites. And the egg whites have to be ONLY egg whites. If you even get a single DROP of egg yolk in there, you are screwed. The best thing to do is separate each egg, and once you are sure you haven't contaminated your egg white with any yolk, you add it to another bowl that you keep ONLY for the whites. That way, if you screw up one egg, you don't waste them all.

We only screwed up one white. So, we added 2 more eggs to it, and scrambled them. Hence, the kids lunch for Thursday was taken care of! Bagels with cheese and scrambled egg. Perfect! Like I said, waste not, want not!

So once you have your egg whites ready to go, put them in your SUPER CLEAN AND DRY stand mixer with the egg beater attachment. Remember, if your bowl or beater have any bit of oil on them, they won't whip nice and fluffy. Or at all. Seriously. If your bowl is nice and clean, your 4 small egg whites will whip to almost 6 times their volume! And egg whites are protein. A little goes a long way. They hardly have any calories! As well, when you are making them into meringues, most recipes call for 1/4 cup of sugar per egg white. I think that is WAY much. I use less than a tablespoon per egg white. It just doesn't need it.

So back to making a Pavlova. Which, until you add the whipped cream, is not fattening AT ALL.

Dump your egg whites in the stand mixer.



Turn the machine on a medium speed until they get foamy.



Once they start getting a little bit firmer, you can start adding your sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time.



Once they are nice and fluffy (hint: they will stand up on their own) they are ready to be baked.



You see how much more they increase in volume? They are HUGE and look like marshmallow clouds.

Shmear them out in whatever shape you want on a parchment lined baking sheet. You can make the parchment stick to the baking sheet by putting a little dab of meringue in the corners of the sheet.



Bake in a 200 degree oven for about 2 hours, then turn the oven off and leave the meringue in there overnight. The picture above is pre-baking. Once it is baked, you can eat it just like that, but usually I make smaller individual meringues for that. Its a perfect dessert if you are on a diet, or avoiding big carbs. You could even do it without sugar at all, which I think tastes fine. You could add ground up nuts to it too, and its super delicious.



Cover the meringue with a thin layer of jam. I used raspberry, because its what I had on hand. Any kind you like will work. Cover that with whipped cream.



Add fruit of your choice. I used strawberries and kiwi. Its what I had.



Refrigerate until you are ready and enjoy the remainder of your EGGSTRAVAGANZA.