A triumphant dessert. We love making a pavlova, it is always impressive and its so easy to make – and it goes a long way too! The sweet and tart caramelised fruits infused with their warming spices, the nutty meringue and cooling cream is pure happiness. And a damn good alternative to the steaming rich Christmas pudding. A light and chewy marshmallow base with its snow top peaks topped with magnificent glistening boozy fruit – a good fit for the end of festive celebrations. Yes there is nothing quite as exciting as the hot flaming traditional pud, the sheer extravagance of it all with its ancient ingredients, the time and effort required to produce and then being rushed around the table flames leaping from the plate – but we can assure you will be met with gasps of delight from your guests when you present this show stopper if you are seeking an alternative. We had originally thought to make chai tea meringues, inspired from a dessert we recently made for an event - Earl Grey meringues with brandy cream, Cointreau soaked clementine’s and pomegranate. Grinding the tea to a fine powder and adding it to the sweet meringue mixture works well and adds a heavenly fragrance that’s not overly spiced. For us the Chai meringues worked if serving as a tiny portion, almost a canape but it was too much when settling down to a generous scoop of pavlova. Wanting to keep the chai flavours in the dish we decided to add them to the cream, the preferred route is to infuse the cream by simmering it with the chai ingredients (we use cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger), then cool the cream and whisk. The bore about this way is after the cream has been heated you need to refrigerate it for a while and it takes a very long time to whisk up, but you do end up with a clean white cream. The quicker option is in our recipe below. Either way is delicious. The tea that we have been using is by Wedgewood, a wonderful discovery and we thought we would let you in on this secret.