Blackberry, elderflower and mint pavlovas

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 120°C and line a baking tray with baking parchment (not greaseproof; the meringue will stick to that).
2. Whisk the egg whites in a bowl using an electric whisk until stiff peaks form. Still whisking, add the caster sugar, a couple of tablespoons at a time. Take some gel colour (about ¼ teaspoon) and fold into the mixture to give a pale violet; be careful with the gel – it is very potent.
3. Sift in the icing sugar and gently fold it in just until smooth. Do not continue to mix it, as you don’t want to knock out too much air. Load into a large piping bag fitted with a large star-shaped nozzle.
4. Pipe 6 nests on to the baking tray, each 10–12 cm in diameter, starting in the centre of each nest and spiralling out to form the base. Then pipe a rim of meringue around the edge of each.
5. Put the meringues into the oven for 1 hour 45 minutes to dry out. Drying out is the key to a good French meringue.
6. Meanwhile, make the syrup. Put the sugar in a pan with 75 ml of water over a medium heat. Coarsely chop 20 g of the mint leaves (keep back 6 sprig tips for decoration) and add to the syrup with the elderflower liqueur. Simmer for 10 minutes, then take off the hob and leave to cool. Strain the syrup through a sieve to remove the leaves.
7. Once the meringues have cooked, take them out of the oven, gently peel off the baking parchment and set on a wire rack to fully cool. It is much easier to peel the paper away from the meringues than vice versa: the paper bends, whereas the meringues crack!
8. Once all the elements of the pavlova have cooled, whip the cream until it reaches soft peaks. Fold 3 tablespoons of syrup into the cream and load into a large piping bag. Pipe cream into the nests, then sit 5 blackberries in the centre of each. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of syrup over the blackberries and poke the saved tips of mint into the cream.