Passionfruit and Milk Chocolate Pavlova

Impress your dinner party guests with this show-stopping pavlova, flavoured with milk chocolate and passionfruit, for dessert. Recipe from Olivia Pott's memoir, A Half Baked Idea.

A Half Baked Idea
From the book A Half Baked Idea
Makes a dinner-plate-sized pavlova, enough for 6
Cook time: 2 h


For the pavlova:
1 tsp lemon juice
3 egg whites
250g caster sugar
1 tsp cornflour
1 tbsp vinegar
For the passionfruit curd:
5 passion fruit
2 large egg yolks
75g caster sugar
50g butter, soft
For the milk chocolate Chantilly:
350g whipping cream
85g milk chocolate, chopped into small pieces
For decoration:
1 passionfruit
50g milk chocolate, for shaving

Essential kit

You will need a stand mixer or an electric whisk.


1. First, make your pavlova. Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/200°C/gas 6. Wipe the inside of your bowl with the lemon juice, using a piece of kitchen paper. Using a stand mixer or an electric whisk, whisk the egg whites gently on a low speed until little bubbles appear, then whisk vigorously until they reach stiff peaks. You can use a normal whisk here too, but it requires strength of arm and spirit.

2. Add the sugar bit by bit, each time beating the mixture back to stiff glossiness before the next addition. Add the cornflour and vinegar, and briefly rewhip. Spoon into a piping bag, if using.

3. Draw a large circle on a piece of greaseproof paper (I draw round a dinner plate). Fix this to a baking tray with a couple of small blobs of meringue, which will stop it moving around. Spoon or pipe your meringue on to the paper inside the outline of the circle, then fill in the rest of the circle. Pipe or spoon blobs in a second layer along the outside of the meringue circle to create a raised edge.

4. Place the pavlova in the oven and immediately reduce the temperature to 150°C fan/170°C/gas 3. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Don’t open the oven during this period. When the pavlova’s had its time, turn the oven off, crack the door of the oven open, but leave the pavlova in there to completely cool.

5. To make the passionfruit curd, juice the passionfruit, sieve out and reserve the seeds, and place the juice, eggs and sugar in a small bowl over a bain-marie. Break the eggs up with a whisk, and heat, stirring continuously with a small spatula until the mixture thickens. It should just hold itself without collapsing when pushed to the side of the bowl. If you have lumps, push it through a sieve. Beat in the softened butter and return the seeds to the curd. Set to one side to cool.

6. To make the milk chocolate Chantilly, heat the cream in a small pan until it is steaming but not quite boiling. Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Pour the hot cream on top and leave for 2 minutes. Stir until they are combined. Allow to cool completely before whisking until the cream forms stiff-ish peaks.

7. Pile the chocolate cream on to the pavlova base. Spoon dollops of the curd on top. Just before serving, squeeze the final passionfruit into a small cup and distribute, seeds and all, all over the pudding. Finish by shaving over fat curls of milk chocolate.


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