A savoury-sweet tangy delight and swirly cloud of delicious flavours.   Pavlovas are delicious anytime and a popular Christmas dessert in Australia and New Zealand.  The base is very simple and fast to whip up if you follow a few basic steps.  Yay!  For this creation the crushed raspberries and whipped cream are folded into whisked goats’ cheese for a scrumptious marbled topping adorned with beautiful slices of fig.  This Raspberry, goats’ cheese and fig pavlova was created for experimental purposes the day before setting out for my Cordon Bleu course in Paris last month.  I thought I’d just eat a very little but…  I’m sure you can guess what happened!  What can you do when a dessert is divine, irrestible and beckons to you?  Um… eat it.  🙂

Raspberry, goats’ cheese and fig pavlova

THE RECIPE

The raspberry and goat’s cheese topping is based on a recipe found in The Flavour Thesaurus – pairings, recipes and ideas for the creative cook by Niki Segnit.  It’s a lovely humourous book packed with suggestions for flavour combinations and Niki Segnit confirms figs not only pair well with goats’ cheese but also with raspberries.  She’s absolutely right.

Pavlova

Pavlova base waiting to go into the oven!

You’ll need a cooled pavlova base you can make on the same day or bake the previous day and store in a hermetic metal tin or wrapped in aluminium foil.  Please use your own recipe or the one found here on my pomegranate and passion fruit yoghurt pavlova post.   Pavlova bases only take 15-20 minutes to prepare, an hour or so baking then two to three hours cooling in the oven.  You’re aiming for a crisp outer layer and soft marshmallowy inside.  Luckily it’s delicious even when overcooked and a little chewy, or slightly undercooked and a tiny bit weepy!  This time I let mine bake a little too long – next time I’ll know.  If you’re new to pavlovas you’ll soon see how they bake best in your oven.

Raspberry, goats’ cheese and fig topping

• 300g/10 and a half ounces raspberries
  
• 200ml double cream or whipping cream (30%)
• Eighth of a teaspoon freshly-squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon or more maple syrup or honey, to taste
• 150g/5 and a third ounces mild goats’ cheese, creamy like Le Président brand.
• 2 or 3 fresh figs cut into quarters or eighths (if you can’t find fresh figs then substitute with whole fresh raspberries or other fruit of the season).  Options include:  blueberries, pomegranate seeds, kiwi fruit, passion fruit or blackberries.

Eating and storing

Once assembled keep your pavlova one hour in the fridge then serve, drizzling with a little honey if you like.  After a few hours it isn’t as good and gets softer but I still find it delicious after a couple of days.  This lovely dessert should appeal to those who lean towards the savoury and of course to people that enjoy their goats’ cheese, figs and raspberries.  They might even forgive the sweeter base when they see a healthier sugar-free topping?  Tee hee.  🙂

Christmas baking

There are some magic Christmas edible goodies in the shops here in Paris and wonderful seasonal bakes by fellow bloggers and Instagrammers.  I particularly enjoy the stars, gingerbread men and those spiced biscuits, liebkuchen.  Actually I love it all!

Sadly I don’t really have time for Christmas baking as I’m still on an amazing but intensive Cordon Bleu pâtisserie course.  But I can offer you some yummy raspberry, goats’ cheese and fig pavlova.

Now we’ve discovered them, me and mum plan to have a pavlova this Christmas when I visit the UK.  Yay!  I wonder if we could make this one.  You know when people say they couldn’t put their book down and just had to keep reading it?  Well, with this pavlova I couldn’t put my fork down for more than a second and just kept eating!  🙂

Have some raspberry, goats’ cheese and fig pavlova!

Wishing you a happy Friday and weekend savoury-sweet reader, with lots of lovely Christmas eye candy!  Happy baking and eating!  🙂 x