As I mentioned at the end of last week’s post, I was waiting for meringues to come out of the oven for our “second Christmas” party on Sunday. I’d only made meringue once before and it turned out okayΒ β the key is patience. If you beat the egg whites too fast, or not long enough, or if you don’t bake the meringues long enough and let them cool slowly, you end up with either a soupy mess, or cracked/deflated meringues. If you want to make pavlovas for your next party, try this recipe from Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen! It’s an easy recipe and the meringues turned out great. π
Ingredients:
4 large egg whites
200g. caster sugar
food colouring (optional)
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 100C.
Put your egg whites into a large bowl and whisk on low speed until foamy (It took me about 4 min).
Once foamy, increase the speed to medium until the egg whites form stiff peaks (It took me about 10 min). The stiff peaks are integral!
Add the caster sugar a tsp. at a time and whisk until combined. You should have stiff, glossy meringue.
[Note: I was experimenting and I added some swirls of purple gel food colouring to some of my meringue mixture.]
Line the baking sheets with parchment paper.
Put your meringue into a piping bag with a star tip.
Start piping by putting a dot in the centre and then pipe around the dot twice. It’s up to you how big you want your “nests” to be; I made mine bite-sized.
Once your meringue nests are piped, bake for 1 hr 45 min.
Turn off the oven and DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR. Leave the meringues to cool in the oven to prevent cracking.
Once cool, you can freeze them if desired, eat them plain, or make pavlovas.
Berry Pavlovas
Ingredients:
Meringues
Whipping cream
Berries
Instructions:
Beat the whipping cream until stiff (about 7-10 min). Spoon into piping bag with a tip of your choice.
Pipe the whipping cream into the meringue nests just shortly before you want to serve them, otherwise they will go soggy. Top with pieces of berryβ I used fresh strawberries and raspberries.
These pavlovas are soft with a crisp shell and a bit of chew; a great lighter option for a Sunday afternoon dessert!
