Lavender Pavlova

So last weekend my hubby surprised me and took me to Sydney, but not only that, he took me to Bilsons - oh my goodness, no words can describe - but I will try...I had Scallops with Lentil and duck and it was just the most beautiful dish (you will probably hear me say that a lot) and my hubby had Assiette d'locean (apologies for spelling). Next we had dewfish (which had been feeding on prawns which made the fish sweeter – wow) and followed by bourbon baba – tiny little sponge cakes with little crème Brulee in the middle, while he had the chocolat plate...we made the deal that we would share these two plates, but I wasn’t very true to my word – it was just so good, I couldn’t stop myself. Luckily hubby said it was too rich so he gave me his dessert (or that’s how i like to relay it J)...Then petit four was these tiny little strawberry meringues...which is why I thought I would start this blogging (and also because one of my gf told me I should start this...) so these meringues were crisp on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside and just melted away, however it was the flavour of strawberry.

As I said, I’m still feeling my way through food. When I lived in Sydney, for some reason I decided to try a pavlova. Don’t ask me why – actually I had to make a dairy free dessert. I had never made it before and had no idea what I was doing, so just whipped it up. I didn’t know you needed to “test” your oven and that “hot” ovens existed (if it says its 180 C – then its 180 C right??? Wrong) but the blessed thing turned out. I felt like a superstar. It was a marshmallow pavlova and this is the dish that I will hold close to my heart as it was the one thing I made that made me feel invincible in the kitchen. After many blunders since, I don’t have that elated feeling so much, but you get the idea...Yesterday I was relaying to my colleagues the artist and master – Adriano Zumbo...How could I go to Sydney and not visit his shop – by the way, the salted caramel macaroons are divine. Anyway, my colleague gave me some recipes for macaroons and flavouring them, and one was with violet flavour and purple food colouring...

Yes I am getting to my point...Since I moved house, I cant make the pavlova for the life of me. So I decided to give it one last go, this was the deciding point – if it doesn’t work out this time, I will never do it again. It turned out!!!! Yay!!!! I also found a bunch of dried lavender flours that mum gave me...so this was something that made me think – could I try a lavender in my pavlova? Could I flavour it?

Another suggestion I had was put rose water in my cream and top with strawberries and raspberries...aw yum.

Appreciate your thoughts...