What to do with all those egg whites now? Make a Pavlova!

As a kid I was always told to finish the food that was on my plate (or no dessert for me!), and my mother was the master of saving leftovers and whipping them into something new the next night.  And so now as I've become more aware of our highly unsustainable global food system where each piece of fruit, loaf of bread, box of cereal, etc, requires enormous amounts of energy to grow it/produce it, package it, transport it thousands of miles, and store it before it finally ends up in my hands, I have a hard time understanding how it is so easy for us to waste food.  Not only are we wasting the fossil fuel that went into the growing, transporting, processing, packaging, and refrigerating, once food is in the landfill and starts rotting it creates methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas!!!  According to Jonathan Bloom, author of American Wasteland: How American Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food, landfills are the second largest human related source of methane.  Who knew that your half finished burger is contributing to climate change on so many different levels??!


This past week, PEAR (Pomona for Environmental Action and Responsibility) a group that I'm a part of on campus, did a food waste audit in our dining halls.  It was shocking to see how easy it is for us to not think about how much the leftovers on our plates add up... (Yours truly made into onto the front of Pomona's student newspaper, check it! http://tsl.pomona.edu/articles/2012/2/16/news/2512-food-waste-at-pomona-adds-up-pear-finds )


So let's say you are planning to make some crème brûlée from Kate's wonderful post below... Great!  You're going along and you crack open the eggs and separate out the yolks you need, but you're realizing that you're going to have some leftover egg whites...  So what to do now?  (Especially since you just learned about how much of an effective wasting food has) Make a Pavlova!!


My partner in (baking) crime, Kristen, is half Kiwi (she's from New Zealand)!  So instead of following a recipe from a blog, Kristen recited her great-grandmother's pavlova recipe from memory as we went along making it.  Apparently pavlovas (a light, delicate meringue cake) are a traditional New Zealand dessert, and I was lucky to know that the first time I made one, the recipe I was using was tested against time and had been used over and over again to make only the best pavlovas! 

Traditional New Zealand Pavlova 

(thanks to Kristen for sharing her family recipe!)

6 eggs whites

2 cups granulated sugar
4 tbsp water
3 tbsp vinegar
2 tbsp vanilla
2 tbsp corn starch


1 pint heavy whipping cream
Vanilla and powdered sugar to taste
Fruit, any will do (raspberries, strawberries, kiwi fruit, passionfruit, blackberries), whatever looks particularly mouthwatering and is in season.

1. Beat the egg white until they form soft peaks.  Add the water, vinegar, and vanilla, beat until well combined.

2. Add the sugar VERY SLOWLY until dissolved & the mixture forms stiff peaks. 

Finally mix in the corn starch. The mixture should be thick, glossy, and stand on its own. 


3. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, flick some water over it.
Form the pavlova into a circle (or two), about 3" tall, on a cookie sheet. If making two, leave plenty of space in between them. 


Bake for 25 min at 250*F, Then turn the oven down to 200*F and bake for 25 additional minutes. Let cool for 3 hours in the oven. Once you put the pavlova in the oven, don't open/bump the oven until it has cooled completely. 



Just before serving, whip the cream, cut the fruit cover the top of the pavlova with it!