I recently ran a poll of my email subscribers to see which bake I should make next to add to the DoughCuts recipe collection.  Chocolate Pavlova with Butterscotch Sauce was the winner!  Can't say I was sad about that but all the bakes sounded good to me and rest assured if you voted for a different bake I will blog them too, it will just take me a little while to get to them all.  The good thing about our baking templates is that you can take just about any cake or dessert recipe you fancy and turn it into a fancy shape to suit your occassion. 

I made the chocolate pavolva into a heart shape because a heart is just so versatile from birthdays, anniversaries, engagements, weddings, Christmas to just showing your love.  I have three different heart baking templates available in my print at home version and I picked the heart III template.  It's 11" tall and makes one big pavlova.

You can scroll down to the bottom for the printable recipe and below are my tips.  

Place your baking template under some baking paper on your baking sheet.  You can easily see the template shape to use as a guide to spreading out our meringue mixture.  

 It's a bit tricky to see in the below image but the pavlova spread out before cooking was quite thick at about 5-6cm and there were 2 trays.  Please see the recipe notes about making thinner meringues if you wish.

Allow your pavlovas to cool completely in the oven.  I leave mine overnight (and stick a sticky note on the oven to remind the rest of the family to not turn it on in the morning).

I got some cracks in the side of my pavlovas and this is normal for me!  No matter what I do or what recipe I make I always seem to end up with some cracking.  The meringues were very strong and easy to move however so there wasn't any risk of the dessert turning from pavlova to eton mess - this time!

I didn't sweeten my cream when whipping it but you could add a little icing sugar to the cream if you prefer a little more sweetness.  I find with the butterscotch sauce it is plenty sweet enough.  The sauce is delicious!  Check out those layers.

And the finished product.  This recipe makes a really big dessert and leftovers are just as good the next day.

I'd love to hear your thoughts or if you have any questions please ask and I'll do my best to assist.  I'm a home baker that only bakes for my family so I can't guarantee I'll know the answer but I'll try.  

Happy baking!

Lisa xo