Pavlova, a cake-like dessert of baked meringue topped with fruit, is exceptionally delicious — so naturally, multiple chefs and even multiple countries claim the credit for inventing it. Both Australia and New Zealand claim the pavlova as their own, with different inventors and stories to back them up, but which story is historically accurate?

New Zealand claims that when the ballerina Anna Pavlova visited in 1929, a hotel chef created the dessert in her honor, while Australia claims that one of their hotel chefs invented the pavlova in 1926, in honor of the same ballerina. One part of these stories that can be disproven is the idea that these chefs innovated an entirely original dessert from scratch.

When Dr. Andrew Paul Wood, a New Zealander, attempted to prove the dessert’s origins, he discovered an 18th-century Austrian recipe for "Spanische Windtorte," made with meringue, whipped cream, and fruit. Australia or New Zealand may have been the first to name the dessert after Anna Pavlova, but in the end, Austria was the true progenitor of the dessert.