Meringues

Part two of my rambles about graduation...

So whilst at this fabulous graduation ball I ran into an old friend who I hadn't seen in a while, his name is Mr Churchill; keen surfer, purchaser of ridiculous objects whilst at university (anyone else know anyone who has purchased a table tennis table and a hot tub?!) 

Prior to heading down to Exeter I had being batting off my aunt who was taking the micky on our annual family holiday; she was being stereotypical about what type of boys I  might encounter in halls. Her description was as follows: surfers & well educated boys. I vividly remember the day I moved into halls, getting out of the car and there is this blonde wavy-haired guy in board shorts moving his stuff into halls with his family in tow; two surf boards, a hamper & luggage being marched inside! (My aunt would have been laughing at me if she could have seen the sight) It turns out Henry's family are involved in a certain Shore Surf Shop ... Obviously. Its a good job the cheeky sod managed to get a double occupation bedroom sized room to himself to store all of his boards, and the table tennis table that was to follow after deciding he had too much space in his room! To come back round to the graduation ball, when I bumped into this surfer & we were catching up on old times, my blog was one of the topics of conversation that cropped up & I promised a mention to this old friend. So Henry, this is for you, if you haven't twigged by now!

The next thought was how the bloody hell could I link a surfing boy from uni to the latest perfect bake. My tenuous link lies in the form of a meringue recipe (slightly wavy looking ...)

Makes 12-15

Pre-heat the oven to 150°C

Bake to perfection for 40 minutes 

Cool in the oven for 1 hour

You will need the following:

3 Egg Whites

175g Golden Caster Sugar

An electric whisk

Method:

Separate your eggs & place the whites in a bowl ... whisk!

Start on a low setting for the first 2 minutes then whack up to the highest speed setting for a good 3 or 4 more minutes

You want to whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks, stick with it, be brave, it will take a while. When it looks like this spoon in the sugar, one spoon at a time, whilst continuing to whisk the meringue mix

Continue on for another couple of minutes until all of the sugar has been mixed in and the mix forms stiff peaks. 

You should be able to tip your beaters & the mixture stay still on the beaters

Spoon the mix onto butter greased baking parchment on a tray. 

Use two desert spoons to plop the mixture into artful blobs! 

They will need to be quite spaced out. On a normal sized baking tray you want to have 5 meringues 

Artfully create whispy wavey meringues using a wooden skewer to peak to tops of the meringues

Before putting your meringues into the oven turn it down to 140°C

Bake to perfection in the oven for 40 minutes. 

When you reach this time turn your oven off and leave your meringues inside to cool down 

Serve with either strawberries, raspberries, cream, ice cream or whatever you fancy ... 

Enjoy