Blown highlights and exposure Compensation

On a neighborhood walk, I photographed a white flower backlit by bright sunlight and against a dark background. As usual, I took a shot at 0 EV compensation and then with some negative EC. I decided to keep taking shots with increasing EC. Those shots were taken with center weighted metering. Then I switched to spot metering. All pictures were taken with a Panasonic FZ1000 bridge camera in P mode and Automatic white balance. I'm posting these OOC Jpeg images  as visual examples of how EC changes the final image.

EC values: 0, -0.33EV, - 1.00EV, -1.66 EV, - 2.33EV, - 3.00EV, -3.66EV.  The last image with spot metering has 0.0 EV with the cross hairs on the bright part of the flower.

As I added negative EC, I reduced the blown highlights.  However, I also reduced the sense of light on the flowers.  With too much negative EC, the image doesn't look like what I saw through the viewfinder.

Changing to spot metering takes a bit more time (and I have to remember to switch back to center weighted meting) but for a difficult subject like this one, it is often the most reliable method of dealing with blown highlights.