Strawberry Eton Mess

Posted 2013-10-07 by Natasha Stewart ⇒ follow

Eton Mess is an easy dessert to throw together and it makes a beautiful light and fruity dessert for Summer. This recipe includes making your own meringues, but for a really easy dessert you can always just pick some up from the shops.

Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 1 1/2 hours (plus 1 hour drying time)
Makes: 6-8 servings

Ingredients
[ADVERT]2 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
600ml cream
Icing sugar
Vanilla Bean Paste
500g strawberries

Method

Preheat the oven to 100ºC.

Begin whipping your egg whites in a stand mixer using the whisk attachment (you can do this with a hand whisk, but it will take a lot longer.)

When the egg whites start to get frothy, begin slowly adding the sugar.

When the meringue is finished it should have stiff peaks. This means when you lift up the whisk you should have little points that stick straight up in the air. You can also test by rubbing some of the meringue between your fingers, the sugar should have dissolved and the mixture should be silky smooth.

Fill a large piping bag with the meringue and pipe onto trays lined with baking paper. You can pipe them anyway you like. If you make these mini meringue kisses you won't need to crumble them up, but you can pipe them larger or pipe meringue disks instead.

Bake the meringues in the oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Then turn off the oven and leave the meringue to dry out for another hour.

When your meringue is almost dry, begin whipping your cream. You want it whipped to about a mid-peak.

Slice up just over 1/2 of your strawberries, keep the rest for decorating the top of the eton mess.

Once the meringue is finished, add the chopped strawberries and some crumbled meringue to the cream. Stir through so that they are mixed well.

Add a layer of crumbled meringue to the bottom of your serving bowl. Make sure there are some big bits that will give a nice crunch to the dessert.

Top this layer with some of the cream mixture, then follow with another layer of meringue, and then cream. Sprinkle any leftover meringue over the top of the second cream layer.