Caramelised Peach Pavlova with Honeycomb

For the meringue:

1. Preheat the oven to 150°C and line a baking tray with baking paper.
2. Beat the egg whites with an electric whisk on a medium speed until soft peaks form. Then add the sugar spoonful by spoonful, beating on a low-medium speed the whole time.
3. Sprinkle the cornflour over the meringue and mix in.
4. Spoon the meringue onto the prepared baking tray and shape into a flat circle about 20-25cm across.
5. Bake in the oven for 1 hour. Take out and leave to cool. If your kitchen is fairly cold, turn off the oven and allow the meringue to cool inside the oven with the door open. This will help stop it from cracking while cooling.
6. Once cool, transfer the meringue to a large plate. You can leave the crispy top on top or you can invert the meringue and have the soft marshmallows bottom on top where it will meld with the whipped cream.
7. Whip the double cream until it is thick and forms soft peaks and then spoon on top of the meringue.

For the honeycomb:

• Grease a 20cm square tin well. You can make this ahead of time or make it while the meringue is cooking.
• Put the sugar and golden syrup in a saucepan and heat on a low heat until the sugar is completely dissolved. Turn up the heat to medium and simmer the mix until it is an amber caramel colour.
• Turn off the heat and as quickly as possible tip in the baking soda and heat it into the sugar. It will start to foam up immediately. Pour the foaming mix into the prepared tin and leave to cool. It will keep bubbling for a bit and the settle down. Leave it for an hour to an hour and a half and then smash into pieces will a rolling pin!

For the caramelised peaches:

• Put the sugar on an even layer over the bottom of a saucepan. Cover with about 100ml of water so that all the sugar is wet.
• Heat the sugar and water on a low heat and stir until the sugar has fully dissolved. Once all the crystals have gone, turn the heat up to medium and stop stirring. Add a few drops of lemon juice if you like, to help avoid crystallisation. After 5-7 minutes it will start to colour. You can swirl the pan to help it colour evenly but avoid stirring. Use a wet pastry brush to brush down any crystals from the edges of the saucepan to help stop your caramel crystallising.
• Heat the caramel until it is a light to medium caramel colour. Carefully add the peach slices. This will stop the cooking of the caramel and slightly cook the peach slices. Gently shake the pan to make sure the peach slices are totally covered in caramel. Turn off the head and leave to cool.

Assembly:

• Once the peaches are cool, place them on top of the whipped cream and meringue and spoon over a bit of the caramel sauce. Sprinkle over some pieces of honeycomb.

Recipe credit: "Cake Chemistry"