Killer Raspberry Saskatoon Meringues - Personal Size Pavlova

Do you want to make a splashy impression the next time you are invited to dinner?

Does your garden produce the same as your neighbours but you are looking for the ultimate way to show it off?

If you have access to fresh fruit, here's a simple recipe that will Wow! your friends, increase your popularity with the ladies, and get you more dinner invitations than you know what to do with.

This is a Yukon version of that extravagant Australian creation - "Pavlova", but sized for individual portions so you don't have the complications of cutting up a single large one.

Step 1: Get Your Ingredients and Make the Meringue

Egg whites - the number depends on how many personal-sized meringues you want to make: 3 eggs for 6, 4 eggs for 8
White sugar for the meringues - about 1/4 cup per egg
Corn starch - about1 tbsp
Cream of Tartar (powder) - about 3/4 tsp
Vanilla extract - about 1 tsp
Raspberries (fresh off the bush, if possible), or other fruit
Saskatoons (or "Service Berries"), optional but great if you have them
Parchment paper; cookie sheet, lectric mixer (optional, but is a wrist-saver if you want to get into this in a big way, as I found out)
White sugar for the berries or fruit (to taste)
Whipping cream (about 1 cup (250 ml) for 6 personal-sized meringues
White sugar for the whipping cream (to taste)

Separate the egg whites (and save the yolks for some other recipe, like maybe a wild mushroom omelette.)
Beat the egg whites with the electric mixer, until stiff and "glossy".

Gently fold into the egg whites a mixture of the corn starch, cream of tartar and 1 tbsp of sugar.

Gently fold the vanilla into the mixture.

Put a piece of baking parchment paper onto the cookie sheet and portion out the egg whites to make small round pancake-like shapes - with a rim around each one. (Important - this rim is what will keep all that good filling from just falling off.)

Bake at 275 F for about an hour on the TOP shelf (so the thinner middle part doesn't burn), then prop the oven door open and let them stay in the oven another hour.

Step 2: Filling

This is not for the faint of heart (or those with any other heart condition):

Whip the cream (I always use 500 ml or 2 cups - any left over will never be wasted), and add sugar to taste near the end;
Mash half the raspberries (and saskatoons, if you have them) and add sugar to taste;
Fold in as much whipped cream as you need to cover the meringues going to be served; you can keep any (temporarily) excess whipped cream in the refrigerator;
Fold in the remaining whole berries & make sure you add enough sugar to make it tasty - there's no sense holding back at this point.