It begins innocently: An email message about a “five-ingredient Pavlova”. Just the word “Pavlova” is enough to brighten my day. But the prospect of maybe making this delicious dessert in my own little kitchen suddenly becomes the only thing worth doing.

The mail is from a lively website that hopes to save the world with “Keto” recipes: Low-carb, no sugar, zero gluten and all the rest of it. I’m neither a food-faddist nor a picky eater and I avoid spending time with people who are. Then again, as someone hovering at the edge of diabetes, I know I must control my sugar addiction.

The Pavlova recipe sounds genuinely simple. Eggs, butter, lemon juice and nuts for decoration. Instead of sugar there’s a substitute called Erythritol. I convince myself that the time has come for me to get some, despite the ugly name. We’re all locked down, the world’s coming to an end and I might as well have one last sugar-free Pavlova, right? I order Erythritol on Amazon. It arrives in two days, by which time I have the other ingredients lined up.

I target Sunday evening for the task. I tell Bins that I can’t chat with him because I’m too busy making a Great Dessert. When I tell him what it’s called, he’s unimpressed. “Pooh! A dead Russian ballerina! What a waste of time. Just eat an apple and be grateful that you CAN still find one to eat.” I say goodbye and start separating the eggs.

All goes well. Three yolks, three egg whites. I measure out the Erythritol, pour it into the puddle of egg-white and beat the daylights out of the mixture, with a handheld mixer. I’ve never actually done this before but I’ve watched enough episodes of The Great British Bake Off to know that eventually those snowy peaks WILL form. Sure enough! They do. Feeling immensely confident, I follow instructions for pre-heating the oven and cutting out a base for the meringue, from parchment paper.

Okay, so I don’t have a piping bag. But I decide to make do using a Ziplock plastic pouch, with a corner cut out. Uh-oh. The results are grim: Instead of a beautiful frilly white rim around an equally snowy base I have produced a flattened, dysfunctional igloo. Ever optimistic, I put it into the oven and start work on the lemon curd filling.

A couple of hours later, Bins calls again. “How’s the ballerina?” he wants to know. “Is she alive and living happily ever after in your tummy?” “No,” I confess. “The lemon curd is all right, but the meringue is a soggy mess.” When I ask him what his news is, he says, “Oh — we had a little earthquake just now. I felt it, sitting at my desk. And the mynahs are singing. The sky in Delhi is so blue that we can see the Himalayas from the roof.” “Never! You’re lying about the Himalayas!” I say. “Yup,” he laughs. “But better than murdering famous ballerinas!”

Manjula Padmanabhan, author and artist, writes of her life in the fictional town of Elsewhere, US, in this weekly column

comment COMMENT NOW