Raspberry-mint meringue sandwiches

These bad boys turned out absolutely massive, so you can choose to either make smaller meringues, or share this pud between two! They were absolutely delicious…

Ingredients:

• 3 egg whites
• caster sugar (double the weight of the egg whites)
• 1 tsp cream of tartar
• vanilla extract
• 1 large punnet fresh raspberries
• 1 punnet frozen strawberries, defrosted (fresh will work fine too, frozen is just cheaper)
• 200g white chocolate, melted
• 150ml double cream
• bunch mint leaves, finely chopped

Method:
(makes 6-8)(serves 3-4)

MERINGUES

1. Whack your oven on fan, full blast, and stick your sugar in there in a heat-proof dish, as the oven warms up.
2. Whisk your egg whites (I highly recommend an electric mixer) – start slowly until a few bubbles have formed, then slowly increase the speed as fast as it will go. Keep whisking until the egg whites are stiff enough to hold their form. (Tip the bowl upside-down. If nothing slips or falls out, they’re ready :))
3. Remove the sugar from the oven (and turn the oven down to 120C) and whisk into the egg whites a tsp at a time, along with the cream of tartar. It’ll take awhile but this essential so you knock a minimal amount of air out of the egg whites.
4. Keep whisking your sugar-egg mixture until the mixture is no longer grainy when you rub it between your fingers. Whisk in the vanilla extract until combined.
5. Spoon (or pipe if you can be bothered) your mixture into round oval discs onto a lined baking tin, leaving space between each one. Bake in the oven – depending on how big you make your meringues (mine were the length of my hand. I have a small hand) they may take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 1/2 hours. Mine took around 50-60 minutes.
6. Meringues are ready when they peel away from the baking paper cleanly, and they are dry underneath. Let them cool for a few minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack with a tray underneath.
7. When completely cooled, spoon the melted white chocolate over the top of the meringues (as seen in the photo above). On half of the meringues, decorate with fresh raspberries while the chocolate is still wet. These are going to be your lids. Let everything cool until set. (This may be done in the fridge.)

FILLING

1. Finely chop the mint leaves.
2. Whisk the double cream into soft peaks (TIP: if using an electric whisk, stop just before it looks ready and continue with a hand-whisk; it’s very easy to overwhisk and turn your lovely cream into a clumpy mess, and a hand-whisk gives you greater control & feel of the cream’s consistency).
3. Fold the raspberries, mint leaves, and a drop of the vanilla extract into the cream. I left mine with a slightly rippled effect, stopping before all ingredients were combined completely.

CONSTRUCTION

1. Take a base meringue (one without raspberries on top) and spread the raspberry-cream mixture over it in a thick layer (about the thickness of a raspberry)
2. Place a lid on top, and voilà! You have yourself a delicious creamy raspberry-mint meringue sandwich. Serve up and enjoy 🙂