Individual pavlovas with strawberry pear champagne sauce

The day after my wedding, as we cleaned up the house and yard, we discovered a few things.

Firstly, half a bottle of pink champagne left in the alcohol fridge and secondly, a sheet pavlova, cream and strawberries that my gorgeous aunt had baked and brought up, that hadn’t been put together or served.

Not wanting to waste the champagne, or the pavlova and not being a big drinker (or a drinker at all, really) I wondered what a strawberry champagne sauce would taste like.

Google was next to useless and instead, I made it up as I went along and ended up with the gorgeous looking thing pictured above. Kudos to the other gorgeous aunt on Nathan’s side who gave us the dessert glasses.

It was divine and really easy to make. Easy is something I very definitely needed!

Ingredients:

You need one small sheet pavlova,
some whipped cream,
a punnet of strawberries,
a cup (thereabouts) of sweet champagne
and one large pear, peeled, cored and diced.

Method:

Cut the strawberries up into quarters and dump into a saucepan, along with the diced peeled pear and champagne.

Simmer until the alcohol has cooked off and the fruit is mushy. Using a stick blender, blend it up to a smooth thick liquid.

Using a dessert glass, layer whipped cream, pavlova and the fruit sauce, until it all looks pretty.

You could top this off with fans of strawberries, or mint sprigs. I was going to, but I turned around to check the sauce and my children had eaten them on me.

Such is my life.