2010 Cooking Club Week 18 : Meringues.

Novella

I don't know if it's just me, but the thought of making meringues used to terrify me. Something always went wrong.

I was watching Rachel Allen, Bake on rte a while ago and decided to try out her meringue recipe, pink meringues with raspberry cream.

Ingredients:
4 egg whites
1 pinch salt
300g caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
pink food colouring (or any colour really, does not have to be pink)

For the raspberry cream:
75g fresh or frozen raspberries, (again, could use something like blueberries if you wanted to go with blue food colouring etc.)
2 tbsp icing sugar
1 squeeze lemon juice
400 ml stiffly whipped cream

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 140C. Line two trays with parchment paper.

2. Put the 4 egg whites into a bowl with a pinch of salt. (Make sure the bowl is completely dry) Whisk until soft peaks form.
Add the caster sugar one tablespoon at a time and whisk after each addition. Continue until all has been added and the meringue forms a stiff peak when you lift the whisk from the mixture.

3. Fold in the vanilla extract.

4. Scoop the mixture into individual meringues about 7cm wide on to the prepared trays. You can use a piping bag to do this, if you want to.

5. To give your meringues the ripple colour effect, dip a skewer into the food colouring and swirl through each meringue. (You can skip this step if you want your meringues to be plain)

6. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. To test if your meringues are ready, lift one and gently press on the base. It should be crisp, but give way with a little pressure. Turn off the oven but leave the meringues to cool in there, with the door slightly ajar.

7. When ready to serve, make the raspberry cream. Put the raspberries (or blueberries etc.) and sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice in a food processor and whiz until smooth. If you don't have a food processor, you can do this by hand. Push the mixture through a sieve to remove pips.

8. Mix this puree through the whipped cream. You can leave it rippled, like the meringues or you can mix it though to make the cream a pink colour.

9. To serve, dollop a generous tablespoon of the cream on half of a meringue and sandwich together with another meringue.


I will put up pictures tomorrow, or Wednesday, when I get around to making these this week. Hope you enjoy.

Faith

Ooh, sounds delicious! I've been meaning to try making meringues for ages now. This sounds lovely and summery too. I'm having exciting visions of bringing these to barbecues over the summer .

Mellor

does anybody know of a way to substitute sugar in these,
I love meringues, but have to limit sugar

Bruscar

Novella wrote: »

2. Put the 4 egg whites into a bowl with a pinch of salt. (Make sure the bowl isn't completely dry)

I'm pretty sure this should be make sure bowl is completely dry.

Looking forward to trying this. Looks yum!

applehunter

I'd question why you would need to mix icing sugar in with the cream considering the amounts of sugar already in the meringues.

Novella

Bruscar wrote: »

I'm pretty sure this should be make sure bowl is completely dry.

Looking forward to trying this. Looks yum!

I edited my post! Don't know how I managed to make that typo! Thanks!

applehunter wrote: »

I'd question why you would need to mix icing sugar in with the cream considering the amounts of sugar already in the meringues.

I presume it's because raspberries can be pretty sour so the sugar is probably for a bit of balance? If you're watching your sugar intake you could try leave it out and see how it is.

Little Alex

Hi Novella

I'm going to give these a try tomorrow, but as there are only two of us I might scale down the amounts. Can you tell me how many meringues your recipe makes and of what size?

Thanks!

blueirishangel

This is what I was planning on posting when my turn came!! I have been making then for ages so have adapted the recipe somewhat and they are more pavalovay. They are soooooo yum though. Good luck to everyone making them!

susanroth

Can't wait to see pics of these:D

olaola

Just making these now! Look great so far, hope they survive my dodgy oven.
The extra sugar really makes the mixture thicker than usual. Will let you know how they work out! Thanks

Update!
They were exactly how I like them - chewy! Big success, will defo be doing these again. Some of the nicest I've tasted in ages.

Mr Magnolia

I'd fresh raspberries so I used them. My first attempt with the eggs wouldn't 'peak' must have added the sugar too quickly, second attempt was fine though the meringues were enormous. I halved them. Really lovely desert, nice and refreshing.

Little Alex

Right, I actually ended up making these twice! I had never made meringues before so it was a bt of an adventure. Anyway this is what they looked like... this one was decorated by Mrs. Alex:



I also tried whirling the raspberry sauce into the cream, but I overmixed it and it look the stiffness out of the cream:



Another thing I tried was stirring the food colouring in with the meringue mix (as opposed to your streaking method - which I also did do with one of them) and that ended in disaster. They were stiff and looked nice going into the oven, but collapsed during baking and turned a disgusting grey-red colour, so I wouldn't try that again!

Anyway, thank you, they were very nice.

nice1franko

I'm a bit behind so only getting to make these today.

How long would they keep for do you think?

I prefer to not throw out food ("kids starving in Africa" and all that!) so with the egg yokes I'm going to have a go at homemade mayonnaise. I have a recipe in a nigel slater recipe that looks handy enough.

rgiller

I think i've heard before that you should add a little vinegar to meringue mix - anyone know what the purpose of this is?

datk

rgiller wrote: »

I think i've heard before that you should add a little vinegar to meringue mix - anyone know what the purpose of this is?

It reacts with the egg white and makes them fluffier and less likely to collapse.

olaola

datk wrote: »

It reacts with the egg white and makes them fluffier and less likely to collapse.

I don't like the vinegar - they are too fluffy, I like these ones, nice and chewy.

nice1franko

Did these a few weeks ago but was a bit of a disaster.

I've about 5 diff types of sugar but after whisking and all that discovered none of it was caster so I used icing sugar instead. "Same same -only finer" I thought.

It looked good when I was putting it in the oven. After half an hour they were still just goo so I put it up to 150c and it took about another half an hour.

At that stage they looked like this:



They do actually taste nice though - so were grand for an Eton Mess.

jhynes2009

I always add vinegar and cornflour to the meringue recipe - this give the centre a marshmallowy texture, soft on inside and crispy on the outside.

For best results with meringue use a glass or steel bowl for beating the egg as fat tends to stick to plastic bowls and this can interfere with the foaming of the egg.

That recipe looks delish, going to try that soon!