MAISON DE KENNEDY

Pavlova Roulade

🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍 (0/5) Tested by Cass — 2 hrs 20 min · Serves 8–10

Not made this one yet — no rating.

Same meringue principle as a pavlova, but baked flat in a sheet pan and rolled around whipped cream and fruit into a log, then sliced into clean pinwheels. The texture is different from a domed pavlova — softer all the way through, more marshmallow, slightly chewy from being rolled while warm. Easier to serve, harder to ruin, scales better for a crowd. The one real difference in method: bake hot and short, not low and slow.

Ingredients

Meringue

• 5 large Egg Whites — room temperature
• 250 g Caster Sugar
• 2 tsp Cornflour
• 1 tsp White Vinegar
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• Pinch Salt
• Extra Caster Sugar — for dusting the inversion parchment

Filling

• 500 ml Heavy Whipping Cream
• 2 tbsp Powdered Sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 2 cups Mixed Fruit — see filling ideas
• Optional: 2 tbsp Lemon Curd or Passionfruit Pulp — swirled through the cream

Equipment

• Swiss Roll Tin — ~30 × 40 cm, with sides
• Parchment Paper — two sheets
• Clean Tea Towel — for the roll

Method

1. Preheat and line: 180°C / 350°F. Line the Swiss roll tin with parchment, leaving a 2 cm overhang on the long sides for lifting later.
2. Soft peaks: Whip the egg whites with the salt for 2–3 minutes.
3. Sugar slowly: One tablespoon at a time, ~20 seconds between each, about 10 minutes total. Rub a little between your fingers — completely smooth, no grit.
4. Fold in the slurry: Cornflour, vinegar and vanilla mixed together, folded gently through.
5. Spread: Into the tin, an even ~2 cm thick rectangle all the way to the corners. Smooth the top.
6. Bake 10–12 minutes until pale gold and just firm to a gentle touch. Light cracks on the surface are perfect — that's what gives the rolled exterior its character.
7. Cool 5 minutes only. Do not fully cool — you need it warm and flexible to roll without cracking.
8. Prep the inversion surface: Fresh sheet of parchment on a clean tea towel on the bench, dusted generously with caster sugar.
9. Invert: Turn the tin out onto the sugared parchment and carefully peel the baked parchment off the top. The slightly crispy top now faces down; the soft bottom faces up.
10. Training roll — warm and empty: Long side facing you. Using the tea towel underneath to lift, roll up from the long edge with the fresh parchment rolled inside. The parchment is what actually gets rolled and stops the meringue sticking to itself. Gentle but firm.
11. Cool rolled, 30–45 minutes, seam-side down. This is the meringue learning its shape.
12. Whip the cream with powdered sugar and vanilla to soft peaks — not stiff. It firms further as you roll and chill.
13. Swirl, if using: Dollop lemon curd or passionfruit onto the cream and fold twice. Leave streaks, don't fully blend.
14. Unroll gently — the parchment peels away as it opens. Small cracks are fine; the cream glues everything.
15. Fill: Spread the cream evenly, leaving a 2 cm border all round — it spreads as you roll and the border stops overflow. Scatter the fruit evenly over the top.
16. Re-roll for real: Using the parchment and towel to lift, roll from the long edge. Because the meringue already learned the curve it should roll cleanly without cracking across the top.
17. Transfer and dust: Seam down, onto a serving plate using the parchment. Dust with powdered sugar.
18. Chill 1 hour minimum before serving, to firm the cream and set the shape.
19. Slice with a sharp knife, wiped clean between cuts, for tidy pinwheels.

Notes

• Roll it twice — first empty and warm, then filled and cool. Fresh cream can't go onto warm meringue; it melts and weeps. So you train the roll shape while the meringue is still flexible from the oven, let it cool holding that curve around a sheet of parchment, then unroll, fill and re-roll for real. The meringue remembers the shape and cooperates the second time. Standard technique for any roulade.
• This is the opposite oven curve from a disc pavlova. Here you want a soft, pliable meringue you can roll. Low and slow would set it too rigid. Hot and short keeps it flexible. 12 minutes maximum.
• Make-ahead: assembled and chilled up to 4 hours ahead. Longer and the meringue starts softening from the cream. The bare meringue sheet, un-rolled and unfilled, keeps in a tin at room temperature for a day if you want to split the work.
• If you're filming it: the roulade bakes too fast for a good oven time-lapse — save that camera for the disc pavlova and its 90 minutes of dome-rise. Here the money shot is the roll itself, filmed overhead at 4× as the meringue curls up around the cream and fruit.

Fruit Filling Ideas

• Classic Kiwi — sliced kiwifruit, strawberries, passionfruit pulp drizzled over the cream.
• Lemon-raspberry — lemon curd folded into the cream with fresh raspberries. The iconic Mary Berry version.
• Berry chaos — raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, mint.
• Tropical — mango, passionfruit, toasted coconut.
• Chocolate-cherry — 50 g melted dark chocolate folded into the cream, halved fresh cherries.
• Strawberry-rose — strawberries, 1 tsp rosewater in the cream, crushed pistachios on top.
• Peach-honey-thyme — sliced peach, thyme-honey drizzle, crushed amaretti on top.
• Stewed rhubarb — cooled stewed rhubarb, ginger in the cream, crystallised ginger on top.

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