The perfect light dessert. It may not be summer any more, but this dessert is great for all year round. You can adapt it to use fruit that is in season in your area.
Whenever I think of a quintessentially British dessert, Eton mess always comes to mind. Layers of cream, meringue and fruit, you can't go wrong. My older sister had the brilliant idea of adding Madeira cake to this well known dessert. And oh boy did it not disappoint.
In the recipe, I didn't make my meringues from scratch, I bought them. But I have included the recipe for the meringues.
Ingredients:
Sauce:
150g strawberries
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon icing sugar
Whipped cream:
1 tablespoon icing sugar
400ml double cream (soft peaks)
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
5 meringues, crushed
Meringues:
3 Large Egg Whites
170g Caster Sugar
Accoutrements:
150g strawberries, cut up into pieces
150g Madeira cake or cake of your choice, cubed
Before making the meringue, make sure the bowl and balloon whisk are completely clean. To ensure they are free of grease, rub them both with lemon juice.
Separate your eggs and place the whites into the mixing bowl and beat them until they reach a soft peak.
Add in the sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, while the eggs are still beating. Make sure the sugar gets incorporated after each addition.
Once your eggs whites have reached a stiff peak and look shiny and glossy, they are ready.
Transfer your egg whites into a piping bag with a star nozzle attached. Pipe a swirl starting from the outside, ending in the middle.
Place the meringues in the oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until they are crisp. They should sound hollow when you tap the bottom.
Turn off the oven and leave the meringues to cool with the oven door slightly open, to help dry them out.
Cut your strawberries into quarters and remove the stalks. Place them, the icing sugar and lemon juice in a food processor/blender and blitz together to create a sauce.
Whip up your double cream, icing sugar and vanilla into soft peaks in a large bowl. Crush or break up the meringues into the whipped cream.
Chop up your strawberries and Madeira cake.
In a sundae glass or serving dish of your choice, start to assemble the Eton mess.
Start with a layer of cream, strawberries, cake, strawberry sauce, be generous with the sauce. Alternate this pattern until you reach the top.
To finish off, decorate the Eton mess with some sauce, crushed meringues and a halved or whole strawberry on top with the stem still attached and a sprig of mint if you want to be extra fancy.
Watch the video here.
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