Monday 19 July 2010

Chocolate Honey Meringues

With three egg whites to use up after making the Melting Chocolate Puddings, some kind of meringue seemd the answer.

This recipe for Chocolate Honey Meringues was published by Dan Lepard a couple of weeks ago in his Guardian Weekend column. It only needed one more egg white adding!

The recipe was straightforward to follow and I didn't encounter any problems, although I did lower the temperatue by 10C after the first hour as I know my oven is quite hot. The mixture made about 25 meringues using a tablespoon of the raw meringue mix for each one.

The flavour was great - I used a strongly flavoured Greek mountain honey - but unfortunately I just didn't like the texture. They were almost jaw-breakingly hard, and I'm not experienced enough with meringues to know if this was right, or if I did something wrong, such as overbaking or not beating the egg whites enough. I think I will have to freeze these and eventually use them in an Eton Mess type of dessert, where they will have a chance to soften a bit before they are eaten. 

7 comments:

Alicia Foodycat said...

Eton Mess made with chocolate meringues sounds gorgeous! Some dark cherries and a bit of booze...

Jude said...

I saw this recipe and wondered if you'd try it Sue. I prefer hard meringue I think but I'm no expert on making it. I do love good honey though, I might give these a go in the school holidays.

Suelle said...

Foodycat - sounds good to me. I'm trying an 'instant' dessert tonight with dried apricots soaked a while in apricot yogurt, cream and the meringues in layers.

Jude - these were really hard - like toffee!

Choclette said...

These look and sound so good, it's hard to imagine they can break your jaws - that doesn't sound quite normal for meringues.

Choclette said...

I've just been told off by your word verification - truent. I know it's been a while since I've visited but didn't realise it was that long!

Suelle said...

Choclette :) I've often had word verifications which seem spookily apt for food blogs, but one recent one was 'mingin'!

Even mixing the meringues with cream for a couple of hours didn't really soften them!

Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial said...

Suelle, Choclette, I recently said to Pete, "I think the word verifications are trying to tell me something.." I swear there's a message to be had there sometimes.. :)

Serendipitous, Suelle, I've been making chocolate meringues too. Different recipe though - I must go check out Dan's, thank you for the headsup! :)