Sunday afternoon - Meringues, Strawberries and Champagne!

Dear Readers,

Well! It is day five of five in the week-long Whimsy blog-a-thon and I am exhausted! (And full of cake.) Those avid readers amongst you may have thought that I'd given up on the final day but I do not intend to disappoint and bring you, in the final blog for this week, the most perfect chewy-on-the-inside crispy-on-the-outside Sunday Afternoon Meringues. Whilst I *have* blogged about meringues before, those were the super complex Swiss meringue method meringues  or the 'let's heat up a load of caster sugar first' meringues, whereas these are far simpler and ones that you can whisk up in a couple of hours.

Mise en place is key! Separate three large free range eggs ensuring the egg white is placed in a scrupulously clean metal bowl. Weigh 125g of caster sugar and 75g icing sugar (use golden icing sugar if you'd like your meringues to turn out wedding-dress-white and normal icing sugar if you's like them snow-white). Sieve the icing sugar so that when you sieve it again into the meringue mix layer it is super-super fine.

Whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. You should whisk them for quite awhile really if you're after maximum volume.

Add the caster sugar a quarter at a time and whisk in thoroughly between each addition. The key here is to make sure the caster sugar is completely integrated before adding more. The mix will become increasingly thick and glossy and should look a bit like the pic below when it's ready.

Now sieve the icing sugar into the bowl and use a large metal spoon to fold it through. This is a little tricky as it feels wrong to fold icing sugar in when you've just spent ages whisking the meringue but have faith! It does not alter the volume you'll get from the finished delight. 

When it's fully integrated, it should look a bit like the pic below. (Note the creamier wedding-dress colour as I used golden icing sugar here, I think it looks nicer.)

Line a baking tray with silver foil and dollop little smurf-mounds of the mix onto the foil. 

Cook in the oven at 100 degrees (fan assisted) for one and a half hours. This mix makes twelve small meringues, and you could use the rest of the meringue to make a medium sized pavlova disc as below (or just make more meringue nests). You could go in for piping but I personally don't think it looks as nice. 

To serve the meringues, whip up some double cream with a tablespoon of icing sugar and a dash of vanilla and then sandwich two meringues together with the pillowy thick cream.

 Add some strawberries and a bottle of champagne and what more could you ask for?

Perfect Sunday Afternoon Tea (- tea + champagne)! This has been a five day blog-a-thon. I have been Silver Whimsy. Thank you and good night! x 

PS I think I'll be blogging again on Monday! x

Hazelnut and Cinnamon Meringues

Dear Readers THANK YOU for the phenomenal reading response to TSWCS 3.0! I do hope you all enjoyed the pictures and will come to The Jester Festival in 2013!

Now that summer has officially reached Britain, why not make some meringues - the oven temperature is low enough that it won't over-heat your house and meringues make the perfect long summer eve desert. 

These meringues are a little bit different - they're slightly more grown-up after dinner with a coffee and/or amaretto than the pistachio and vanilla ones, but well worth trying...

 

...the recipe comes from Ottolenghi and it is a fabulous one as the meringues turn out just as good as the  famous ones for sale in their shop. The perfect sticky and gooey meringue treat. 

The recipe follows the Swiss meringue method which involves melting 260g caster sugar and 140g dark brown muscavado sugar in 200g free range organic egg whites in a bain marie for about ten minutes. Please be warned that it looks pretty revolting (as you can see in this picture) but I promise you the end result is worth the moderate ugliness of the early stages. You should be pre-heating the oven to 110 degrees by the way!

 Once this is done, you can begin the whisking. As per my previous post on meringues do not believe the instruction that it is not possible to get high volume meringues without a free standing whisk! Mine are made using a very lo-fi hand held electric option and always come out ticketty-boo. After a minute of whisking, the mixture will look like the above pic.

 After four mins it should begin to change colour and look like the one above.

 By the time you have been whisking for eight minutes, it should be cool, super-glossy, a beautiful pale colour and hold it's shape as per the image below. (NB these photos were taken by me whilst I was in the process of whisking hence the not-so-brilliant quality. It was a challenging photographic experiment!)

 At this point, it all gets super-fun as you sprinkle half a teaspoon of cinnamon over the mix and then VERY gently fold it in with a rubber spatula.

 Have 30g unskinned hazelnuts (roast them slightly and then rub the skins off in a tea-towel to get the best flavour) roughly chopped and ready and waiting along with two large baking trays lined with baking paper. Use two large metal spoons to scoop up a generous dollop of the meringue mix and then transfer to the baking tray before sprinkling over the hazelnuts. This is the most fun part of meringue-making - enjoy swirling the mixture onto the tray!

 They should look something like this as they go into the oven. Ensure they are well spaced out as they do puff up to a surprising extent.

Bake for between one and a quarter to two hours. It is hard to tell if they're done and it's important NOT to over-bake them so that you still have that chewy sticky gooey inner yumminess, but it IS very important that they are completely dry on the underneath and that should let you know when they're done. So I would say check after one and a quarter hours, but expect them to take about fifteen minutes longer after that. 

Et voila! Delicious Hazelnut and cinnamon meringues pretty and tasty enough to grace the cake stands of Whimsy! We completely under-priced our meringyues based on how expensive free range organic eggs cost but I think the people appreciated the Whimsenomical bargain they were getting and, indeed, these meringues were one of the first sell out products at TSWCS 3.0!
I am so excited about my next post featuring WHIMSY branded shortbread - you're going to love it!
Sugar and spacedust,
Whimsy x

Pistachio and Vanilla Meringues

As preparations for TSWCS 3.0 continue apace, I thought I would give you a (not so) quick and relatively simple meringue recipe! I think there are many myths surrounding meringues that are created to prevent people from trying to make their own. The first is that you need a freestanding electric whisk / mixer to get real volume. Whilst I'm sure the Kitchens of Whimsy would be forever changed if I had a 'Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer' I do find that a regular (in fact rather small) hand-held electric whisk creates adequate fluffy meringue volume from where I'm standing...

 Take 600g caster sugar and heat it in the oven at 200 degrees until the sugar is starting to dissolve slightly at the edges and your kitchen smells of candy floss (8-10 mins).

 Put 300g egg whites (preferably ones that have been left in a loosely covered bowl overnight as this will help create volume, whatever you do don;t use them straight out of the fridge!!) in a meticulously clean (I always pour boiling water over the bowl and then allow it to cool before whisking) metal bowl.

 Whip the egg whites until they begin to fluff up and at this point VERY slowly and carefully add the sugar about a fifth at a time whipping constantly until the sugar has been completely absorbed before adding more. The mixture will become very thick and begin turning into the most beautiful silky wedding-dress-white substance. When this happens KEEP GOING as it is likely you still haven't been whisking for long enough. You need to have been going for about 8-10 mins in all.

 In the last 30 seconds or so, add around a tablespoon of vanilla essence. Leave the meringue mix and take out a tray of pistachio nuts that you have chopped very finely before you began the whole process (remember mise-en-place is key!). Using two large silver spoons, scoop up a generous portion of meringue and put it in the pistachios. Pick it up with the other spoon and place on a baking paper-lined baking tray.

 Doing this is quite tricky...you can always put the meringues on the tray and sprinkle the nuts on top if you need to, but the result isn;t quite as good...

 These dollops of creamy sugary delight need to cook for about two hours at a very low temperature - 100 degrees.

Best served with freshly whipped cream and some slightly sharp raspberries to cut through all that sugar!

Silver Whimsy x