I made this Festive Chocolate Pavlova with Bailey´s Cream for a Bonfire Night potluck and it went down a storm! I got so many lovely comments on it that I felt like I had to share the recipe with you!
A perfect dessert for the upcoming festive season!🎄🎉✨🎁
This chocolate pavlova is actually really easy to make but looks really impressive! It´s perfect to serve for the upcoming festive season, I think I might make it again for Christmas or New Year!
Usually, I´d associate a pavlova with summer, as it is usually filled with cream and fresh berries. The addition of chocolate and Bailey´s Irish Cream, however, turns this into a wonderful, comforting Winter dessert/pudding!
I don´t usually drink alcohol, I just don´t like the taste of it! But if there is one thing I enjoy a little of, it´s Bailey´s Irish Cream. I add about 4-5 tbsp of it to the whipped cream filling, but feel free to play around with the quantities and adjust the flavour to your liking.
What do you need to look out for when making pavlova?
Pavlova is a classic dessert (or pudding, depending on what you want to call it) made from meringue. For pavlova, you make a French meringue, by whisking egg whites and slowly adding sugar to it unit it´s thick, smooth and glossy. Don´t add too much sugar at one time, as it may cause the meringue to crack.
Meringues are baked at low oven temperatures for a long time so that they slowly dry out. They do not like rapid changes in temperature, so it is important not too open the oven when baking, and to leave the meringue to slowly cool in the oven. If the temperature drops too quickly, your meringue will crack.
The initial idea for this recipe was taken from this website here. However, I decided to change the quantities for the cream slightly, as the original made far too much, in my opinion.
Go wild on the chocolate decorations!
I decorated my chocolate pavlova with some homemade chocolate “squiggle” decorations. Check out how to make them in my How To Master Chocolate – Baking Basics #2 post.
Or make some delicious Bailey´s Chocolate Truffles to pile on top of the pavlova for an extra something special!
I also topped the pavlova with some of Quality Street´s Matchmakers to make it look more like a bonfire. I´ve only recently discovered Matchmakers – They are soooo good! I love the Salted Caramel ones I used for this chocolate pavlova, but have since then seen they have just released Orange and Gingerbread flavours!
I know what I´ll be stuffing my face with in the run-up to Christmas!
For more festive baking ideas, why not try these German Christmas biscuits called “Kipferl”, my Gingerbread Men, Classic Scottish Shortbread, German Christmas Stollen or any one of these 6 Crowd-Pleasing Dessert Recipes?
Festive Chocolate Pavlova with Bailey´s Cream
Recipe
Ingredients:
FOR THE FRENCH MERINGUE (PAVLOVA):
- 4 large egg whites
- 225g caster sugar
- 1 tsp cornflour
- 1 tsp white wine vinegar
FOR THE BAILEY´S CREAM FILLING:
- 300ml whipping cream (or double cream)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 4-5 tbsp Bailey´s Original Irish Cream
FOR DECORATING:
- 50g milk chocolate
- 100g dark chocolate
- Quality Street Matchmakers Salted Caramel/Chocolate Orange or similar (e.g. Cadbury´s chocolate fingers, Mikado Sticks, etc…).
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan.
- Use a plate to draw a circle (about 25cm diameter) on a sheet of baking paper. Turn over and lay it on a baking tray.
- Whisk the egg whites with an electric whisk until they start forming peaks. Start adding the sugar a few tablespoons at a time, mixing well between each addition. Continue until all the sugar has been used up.
- Whist the meringue for another 3-4 minutes until it is glossy and form stiff peaks (you should be able to turn the bowl upside down without the meringue moving). Quickly whisk in the cornflour and vinegar.
- Use a large metal spoon to pile the meringue mixture onto the baking paper and form it into a circular shape, using the circle you previously drew as a guide.
- Turn the oven down to 120°C/100°C fan and bake the meringue for 1.5 hours. Turn off the oven and leave the meringue inside the oven until it has cooled completely! Don´t open the oven door, as rapid changes in temperature will cause the meringue to crack!
- Carefully peel off the baking paper and place the pavlova onto a large plate.
- Gently melt the milk chocolate over a bain-marie. To do this, put the chocolate into a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water. The water should not be touching the bowl and should not boil! Drizzle the milk chocolate over the pavlova using a teaspoon.
- Next, melt the dark chocolate in the same way as above (you can just use the same bowl as before!). Use about half of the dark chocolate to drizzle over the pavlova, then spoon the rest into a piping bag/sturdy freezer bag. Use this to pipe some chocolate decorations onto a sheet of baking paper and leave to set.
- In the meantime, prepare the cream to fill the pavlova. In a bowl, whisk together the vanilla extract, whipping cream and Bailey´s Irish Cream until it forms soft peaks.
- Spoon the cream on top of the pavlova and decorate with the chocolate decorations and Matchmakers.
