bakingmeringuesubstitutions
Our local stores do not sell cornflour so I need a substitute.
Online I'm finding people saying use normal flour, or you can use arrowroot or you can use cornstarch at half the quantity. But these substitutions are given for purposes like thickening agents.
Really I don't know if something like 'flour' would be a good substitute in a Pavlova. What is the right substitute for the purpose of a Pavlova?
If you can get it, sherry is usually a good bet but since you can't, I've used just regular white wine before as a substitute when you're cooking a dish but you just need to be a little less liberal as you might be with rice wine as I find the flavour tends to be a little stronger.
Another alternative is Sake, but I'm assuming that if you can't get rice wine, you'll struggle to find Sake.
The secrets: (some are old wives tales, but hey, it's an old recipe)
Eggs: Room temperature (you don't put eggs in the fridge do you?) and not fresh
Contamination: Make sure everything you use to prepare the base is perfectly clean, especially no grease. Use boiling water to rinse everything first. Metal or glass bowls are best, as plastic is harder to get 100% clean. Also make sure no yolk gets into the egg whites
Beating: When eggs whites have gone firm, add the sugar a little at a time using a powerful beater machine going flat out. NZ'ers use their trusty but ancient Kenwood Chef with the glass bowl for ten minutes until the it looks like the Swiss Alps on a sunny day. You should not be able to feel the castor sugar when you squish some mix between your fingers. If they go dull you have over beaten. They will still work but will go extra soggy when cooked as the sugar runs out
BTW: Use ear muffs when using your Kenwood Chef, I kid you not!
Size: Height = radius, or a little less. A radius of less than 10cm means you won't get Pav, just meringue. You can experiment with baking paper rings to hold the mix into a perfect cake shape if fussy. I wouldn't bother though
Problems:
If truly stuck, go on a course http://www.creativetourism.co.nz/workshops_taste_pav.html
This is what they should look like
Best Answer
Cornflour in that sense being just starch, you should be able to use many starches with decent results. So corn starch, wheat starch, potato starch, rice starch, etc. will work, no matter what name they are sold under (e.g. you are more likely to find "rice flour" than "rice starch"). Try to avoid starches that are high in amylopectin ("waxy" starches), for the pavlova you want fluffiness in the starch.
If you are willing to experiment and end up with results that are farther away from the original, consider trying random flours from gluten free plants. I don't mean the "gluten-free flour mixes" in the supermarket which are enriched with gums, I mean things like oat flour, chestnut flour, etc.