Meringue dessert

Meringue nests before baking

Last week I baked some macarons. I hadn't done them for a long time and got the idea from my sister who was asking for some advice for making them. I will post about them later, I promise. Well, this all leads me to the meringue. I filled my macarons with lemon curd and thus I had some eggwhite left over and I wanted to use it for something. My Hubby really likes meringues and I hadn't done them for ages so that's what I decided to go for. My meringue nests turned out pretty nice and yesterday we had a dessert with meringue, lemon curd, fruits and  whipped cream. Here comes the recipe, which I took from the book "Baking and Pastry - mastering the art and craft" of the Culinary Institute of America.

Swiss meringue

makes 595 g

227 g Egg whites

5 ml Vanilla extract (I used 1/2 tsp vanilla seeds)

pinch of salt

454 g Sugar

1. Place the egg whites, vanilla, salt and sugar in the mixer bowl and stir until throughly combined.

2. Place the bowl over barely simmering water and slowly stir the mixture until it reaches 74 degrees celsius.

3. Transfer the mixture to the mixer and whip on high speed with the whip attachment until the meringue is the desired consistency.

Small meringues

I piped the meringues in different forms and let them dry over night in the oven. I set the the oven into 90 degrees celsius and let the door slightly ajar. By the way, if you didn't know, there are three different types of meringues: Common/French meringue, Swiss meringue and Italian meringue. The French meringue is the easiest to do. For that one you just whip all the ingredients together. For the Swiss meringue you heat up the ingredients up to 74 degrees celsius and whip them afterwards into a desired consistency. Italian meringue is prepared with a hot sugar sirup. One will start whipping the egg whites and gradually add the hot sugar sirup. I find that for the meringue bases/nests the Swiss meringue is the best one. For the mousse cakes I like to use the Italian meringue instead.

For the dessert I also needed  butter curd. I had some left over from the macarons so I used that one. The recipe is also from the American Culinary Academy book.

Lemon curd

makes 482 g

300 g Butter, cubed

255 g Sugar

270 ml lemon juice (I used only 200 ml)

18 g Lemon zest, grated (I used zest of one lemon)

225 g Egg yolks

1. Combine 150 g of the butter, 128 g of the sugar and the lemon juice and zest and bring to boil over medium heat, stirring gently to dissolve the sugar.

2. Meanwhile, blend the egg yolks with the remaining sugar. Temper by gradually adding about one-third of the lemon juice mixture, stirring constantly with a whisk. Return the tempered egg mixture to the saucepan. Continue cooking, stirring constantly with the whisk, until the mixture comes to boil.

3. Stir in the remaining butter. (I used hand mixer and added the cubes one after other.)

4. Strain the curd into a large shallow container or bowl. Cover with plastic wrap placed directly on the  surface of the curd. Cool over an ice water bart. (I didn't strain the curd and it worked out just fine. I cooled it down in the fridge.)

5. Store the curd, covered, under refrigeration.

To prepare the dessert you will need some of your favourite fruits or berries and some whipped cream. Take the meringue nest (you can often buy these in a normal food store, if you don't want to make them yourself) and fill it with lemon curd. Place the fruits or berries on the curd and pipe some whipped cream on the top. Enjoy!

A super dessert