Elegant is how one might best describe a pavlova, with its delicate bone white shell and pillowy, airy middle. In this version it is married to another classic from the dessert canon, Black Forest cake, for an ethereal holiday dessert designed to wow.
For all its impressiveness, the ingredients in a pavlova shell are shockingly spare. The trick lies in the ratio of egg whites to sugar and the mixing technique. For a strong, crisp, and smooth meringue that can hold the heft of its toppings, you need about twice the weight of sugar to egg whites. Anything much less, and the baked meringue will be dry, flaky, and beige. The best way to counter this sweet base is with a careful selection of toppings rather than scaling back on sugar. Here, drifts of unsweetened whipped cream, bittersweet ganache, and boozy cherries balance it out. We recommend using frozen cherries, even when fresh are in season, because they come pitted (saving you hours of work) and perform better when cooked like this. Traditionally, Black Forest cake is made with sour cherries, so for the truest reference, look for a bag of cherries with a mix of sweet and tart cherries (we like Wyman’s). The tart cherries provide a welcome counterpoint to the meringue. While kirsch is traditional, brandy is a handsome and more accessible stand-in.
For large, wide curls of chocolate to decorate the pavlova, pick a fat, thick bar of chocolate as a good foundation (Tony’s Chocolonely or the one-pound bars from Trader Joe’s are great for this). Warm up the unwrapped bar slightly in the microwave (about 5 seconds) so the chocolate isn’t too brittle. A warmed-up bar will produce dramatic curlicues of chocolate that are a fitting topper for this stately dessert.
