mighty
meringue

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For something so simple it is amazing that meringue is so loved and so damned useful.

They keep brilliantly with a couple of silica gel sachets and are so, so handy. You might just want to do strawberries, meringue, farm cream and vanilla ice cream.

Equally make layers of meringue store in the same manner, add mango, fresh passionfruit and farm cream and if you like maybe mango sorbet or pistachio ice cream.

Make them festive with a few silver balls that you can buy at most supermarkets. Make sticks or, for actual Christmas try the little trees pipped with a round nozzle. Pipe sticks with a slightly larger round nozzle.

Just a tip
for some unknown reason emringue cooks better on baking paper than silicon mats.

The rule is room temp aged egg whites, and caster sugar powdered in your Thermo or mini-blitzer or buy the more expensive pure icing sugar.

9 December 2024 AO
IMAGE COPYRIGHT © wheel and barrow

VERY USEFUL TIPS

  • The two reasons that cooks have trouble with meringue is they take the egg white straight from the fridge and secondly they don’t beat their egg whites long enough before they start adding the sugar. Cooking is chemistry and if you try and dissolve sugar in a glass of ice water it is easy to understand why the egg white needs to be warm and the sugar works better if its powdered. Stale egg white, egg white that has been left at room temperature for three to four days also whips better – scientific fact!
  • Why grams and not a number of eggs? With the eggs available on the market pace egg white size varies as much as 15g from small to jumbo eggs. Also the weight of egg white taken from eggs straight from the fridge is less than from room temperature eggs, so a weight makes very good sense.
  • We love re-useable silicon baking sheets and cookware but have found that for some weird reason it doesn’t work as well as baking paper with meringue and it is now the only recipe we continue to use baking paper for.
  • A clean oven makes for lovely white creamy meringue.
a bucket full of these baby meringues, with a couple of silica gel sachets is the handiest holiday support ever. All you need is some scooped ice cream, a bit of fruit, a dollop of cream and a few little meringues.
We pipe fluted and plain [as below] and about 15 mm as they do expand a little.

super easy

200g room temperature egg white — before you even think of starting, see tips, bottom left
440g caster sugar, powdered in a blender
2 x 70g Wheel&Barrow
silver cashews

essential equipment
1 cm and 2 cm round piping nozzles
large piping bag
baking paper

preheat oven to 125°C
and cover three baking sheets with baking paper.

Fill the mixing bowl with hot water and let it stand for 2-3 minutes. Tip out the water and dry the bowl.

Whisk the egg whites at high speed until they are very stiff and coming away from the edge of the bowl in clumps and only then, start adding the sugar a tablespoon at a time until fully incorporated and continue whipping until the meringue is very stiff and has the appearance of satin.

Fit the piping bag with the required nozzle, smaller for the little trees, larger for the sticks

for the little trees
leaving about 4 cm between each pipe, an upwards spiral.

for the sticks
pipe logs 10 cm – 12 cm about 4 cm apart. A wet knife is good for anding the stick.

For both of above, scatter the cashews sparingly over the top of the meringue, rolling the trays from side to side to catch any run-away cashews.

for the layered meringue and fruit
mark out 3 x 25 cm disks on baking paper, flip the paper, layer it on three baking sheets. Divide the meringue between the three sheets using a crank-handled spatula to smooth it out.

cook for 10 minutes at 125°C, then, without opening the oven door, turn the oven down to 100°C and set a timer for 2 hours. At two hours check they should be firm and dry, the little trees may take a bit longer.

The sticks can be made several days in advance, or a couple of weeks in advanc if stored in an airtight container with 2 x 50g silica gel sachets in a cool dry place. As they are fragile, I usually put some crumpled paper towel or greaseproof paper at the bottom of the container.

suggestion ONE

option one
500g perfect room temperature strawberries, hulled and cut in half
200g fresh or frozen raspberries
50g dark palm sugar, finely grated
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
250g thick pure cream

500g perfect room temperature strawberries, hulled and cut in half
200g fresh or frozen raspberries
50g dark palm sugar, finely grated
30g balsamic vinegar
250g thick pure cream

Very gently mix the berries with the sugar and balsamic. These are fun to serve as a verrine. Put a spoonful of cream on the bottom, berries on top, another dab of cream and a couple of meringue sticks. Add spoon and tray around the room!

PICTURED above MERINGUE sticks, with raspberries and strawberries in palm sugar and balsamic vinegar 
IMAGE COPYRIGHT © wheel and barrow

suggestion two

serves 8-10

3 meringue disks
2 x 300 ml thick pure cream
3 mangoes, peeled and sliced
9 passionfruit, pulped

Put a dab of the cream on your serving plate to secure the first layer. Sit a layer on top, spread with one-third of the cream, one mango and the pulp of three passionfruit.

Repeat the process. Store in the fridge until ready to serve…okay for about an hour.

PICTURED LEFT MERINGUE, CREAM, MANGO AND PASSIONFRUIT
IMAGE COPYRIGHT © wheel and barrow

ice cream bombe

You can either make a large bombe or individual. Large is easier for a crowd. Add fruit, pouring cream and a few little meringues and you’ve nailed it.

pictured right our egg-less blueberry ice cream
pictured right you can go totally over the top and make a bombe peach ice cream, passionfruit, edible gold leaf, native violets, rose petals, baby meringues…a little bit of planning IS required to set the bombe and a good tip is to have your serving plate in the freezer.

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