Gettin’ those meringues m’right

As mentioned in my Taste of Edinburgh post, I’ve had a bit of a ‘getting to know you’ thing going on with eggs for the past couple of weeks. My asparagus with Hollandaise sauce dinner last Wednesday left me with some egg whites to use up . Fleeting thoughts of fussy macarons were rapidly flung out of the window; clearly meringues were the way to go.
Now, presuming you have eggs and sugar in your house, you’d be surprised at how quick it really is to get these things together, and then it’s the perfect home made dessert. Ideal if you’ve any coeliac friends coming round for dinner too. Or in my case, perfect, to take round to your meringue-fantatic mum’s house.
I consulted Delia herself (well, her book!) and she was quite adamant that the fluffy fuss with adding vinegar or corn starch wasn’t always worth it. So, bravely, I flaunted the ‘never improvise with baking’ rule and figured I would adjust the recipe slightly. Golden caster sugar was balanced out with a bit of icing sugar. The result was a batch of chewy lightly browned meringues that I was quite proud of!

Ingredients
3 large egg whites
6 oz caster sugar
(or, as I went for this time…about 4.5 oz golden caster sugar, and 1.5oz sifted icing sugar)
Chopped pistachios or flaked almonds to garnish

Oven
At 140c to heat up , and then turn down to 110 c when you put the meringues in. (fan-assisted ovens)

Method
To keep things seamless later, it’s a good idea to get the baking sheet ready. So, line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper, or edible rice paper if you prefer.

In a metal bowl, whisk the egg whites on high until they can be ‘tufted’ up into soft peaks. If you’re brave (and convinced they’re good to go…) try the lifting the bowl over your head method to check. Please note, if you’ve fudged up, they might end up on the floor, and more eggs could be needed to start again.

Once you’re happy with the egg whites, slowly add in the sugar (I mixed the 2 sugars together at the start) and keep whisking on a high speed.

When the mixture is all light, fluff y and cloud like (and tasting a lot like the mallow part of a Tunnock’s Tea Cake) you’re good to go. Use a tablespoon to put dollops of the meringue mixture on the baking sheet. Decorate with some chopped nuts if you like.

Once the tray goes in the oven, turn the temperature down to 110c and bake for about 40 minutes. After that time, turn the heat off altogether, and allow the meringues to dry out as the oven cools. They should be good for eating after about another hour.

Serve with a dollop of crème fraîche, and some berries sweetened with maple syrup. Hello!

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