An electric hand mixer makes light work of these meringues. Also, it is vital to avoid adding any trace of the yellow egg yolk when you separate the yolks from the whites and to make sure your bowl and beaters are squeaky clean.
Use the left-over yolks from the eggs to add to a salad dressing for a Caesar-like consistency or use them to make a half quantity of the Sherbhert custard recipe which this week made to small children in my house very happy at teatime.
The meringues take about 20 minutes to prepare, 2 hours to cook and an hour or so to cool down so it’s best to make them the day before you want to eat them.
For 12 large meringues (enough for 6)
175g caster sugar
3 egg whites which have been carefully separated from their yolks
You will also need 2 large baking trays each lined with a sheet of baking parchment, an electric hand mixer and alarge heat-proof mixing bowl that will fit snuggly on the top of a saucepan.
- Preheat the oven to 120c and prepare the baking trays.
- Fill a saucepan to about a third full of water and bring it to simmering point.
- Put the caster sugar and egg whites in a large heat-proof bowl and set the bowl over the pan of simmering water – make sure the bowl is not sitting in the water. It needs to be just high enough for the steam from the water to heat it gently.
- Use the electric mixer to whisk the egg whites and sugar together until the mixture is starting to thicken and the beaters leave a thick “trail” across the surface. This will take around five minutes.
- Turn off the heat and remove the bowl from the pan.
- Continue whisking for a further two minutes when the mixture will become thick, shiny and stable.
- Spoon equal amounts of mixture, spacing them apart, onto the prepared baking trays. There should be enough for about 12 meringues.
- Place the trays in the preheated oven and let the meringues cook for around 2 hours but check them after 1 ½ hours. They are done when they will peel away from the baking parchment easily.
- Let them cool completely (this will take about an hour) before eating them with some seasonal summer berries and perhaps some thick cream or yogurt or even a spoonful of custard.
See also: – pavlova – custard –marinated strawberries
If you want a healthier and more environmentally friendly diet, a good start would be to cook from scratch, avoid buying ready-processed meals, and so avoid foods with a high sugar and salt content. Have a look at food labels, you will likely be amazed by how much salt and sugar is included and, worse, how many of the ingredients are not recognisable as food.
Sherbhert champions delicious, healthy and sustainable food where its production minimises environmental damage, exploitation, animal suffering and subsequent processing. Sherbhert’s recipes are simple and use mainly UK seasonal produce sourced as locally as possible.
Sherbhert occasionally recommends suppliers entirely because of their good produce and ethos.
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