It’s Sweet Adventures Blog Hope time again and this time I’m first in which makes a rather nice change from forgetting a few months in a row. I felt rather special when I was asked to host this month’s hop and went straight to theme brainstorming.
I went back and forth on lots of ideas then I just thought ‘Claire, what’s your favourite?’ Well the answer to that was a pretty quick pavlova (although chocolate mud cake ties but that theme had already been used) and so Meringue Mania was born.
I had what I thought was a very creative idea to make meringue cupcakes, spreading the raw meringue into cupcake cakes before baking. I even made them chocolate on the bottom and piped pink meringue on top to look like icing. It was a meringue fail.
While they looked kind of cute they cooked really strangely and it seems cupcake liners and meringue get a long a little too well. So well in fact there was no amount of bribery that could get the two to separate.
Luckily I had a backup meringue recipe up my sleeve. We had Will’s family over to dinner last week seeing as everyone was in town for his sister’s wedding and as there are a couple of gluten-intolerant members of the family, I used it as an excuse to serve up a twist on my favourite.
It was so good that when I was cleaning up I may have disposed of the leftovers in my mouth. Adding hazelnut meal to a plain meringue made it into something seriously special with a lovely extra layer of texture. Of course you can’t go wrong when you combine cream and strawberries and I added a little yoghurt. I’m not sure what it does but somehow it makes the cream taste even better (thank you to Bill Granger for that tip).
I covered mine in strawberries because they’re such a bargain at the moment and I can’t get enough of them but you can use whichever berries you like. Enjoy!
I can’t wait to see everyone else’s Meringue Mania creations.
The details:
- Theme: ‘Meringue Mania’
- Hostess: Claire from Claire K Creations
- Hop opens: Monday 16 September 2013, 9 am (Australian Eastern Standard Time, Sydney)
- Hop closes: Friday 20 September 2013, 11.59 pm (AEST)
How to participate:
- Make a dessert fitting the theme for the month, post your creation on your blog during the week of the blog hop.
- Visit the hostess’s dessert post when it goes live follow the instructions to link up.
- Hop through all the themed creations to discover new recipes and new blogs!
Sweet Adventures Blog Hop, aka SABH, is a monthly dessert link-up. Each month there is a new theme and the hop is open to anyone who blogs recipes. SABH is run by JJ from 84th & 3rd and regular guest hostesses.
Sweet Adventures Blog Hop – Link-up Instructions
The September 2013 ‘Meringue Mania’ hop is open for linkup until 11:59 pm, Friday 20 September [AEST Sydney time].
IMPORTANT – The instructions below cover how to link up but if you aren’t sure of something don’t hesitate to ask! Detailed instructions can be seen here. Remember, SABH is open to all food bloggers but only new posts published after the hop goes live can be linked up.
- Add a link to this post somewhere in your post. You won’t be able to link up in the hop without a ‘backlink’ to this hostess post included in your post.
- Click here for the Thumbnail List code – Copy the code and add it to the bottom of your post in HTML view.
- Click here to Enter the Hop – Make sure to do this step so you appear in the list too! Add the link to your SABH post (NOT your homepage). Your entry will be submitted when you click ‘crop’ on your photo.
Use the #SABH hashtag to tell the world about your post! You can follow us on Twitter: @SweetAdvBlogHop and on Facebook /SweetAdventuresBlogHop for new hop announcements and general deliciousness. Thanks for joining!
The Sweet Adventures Blog Hop, or SABH, is brought to you by 84th & 3rd and monthly Guest Hostesses.
- 2 free-range egg whites
- 115g (4oz) caster (superfine sugar)
- 4tbsp ground hazelnuts
- 290ml (10fl oz) whipping cream
- 3 heaped tbsp Greek yoghurt (plain or vanilla)
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract
- 450g (1lb) chopped strawberries or other berries
- Icing (confectioner’s) sugar to serve
- Pre-heat the oven to 130C fan-forced (330F) and cut two sheets of baking paper.
- On the underside of each one, draw a 20cm (8in) circle – I traced around a cake tin – then place them on two baking trays.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.
- A tablespoon at a time, with the motor running, add the sugar and keep beating until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is stiff and glossy.
- Take the bowl off the stand and fold through the ground hazelnuts.
- Divide the mixture between the two trays, spreading it out to fill the circle then flatten them out on top.
- Bake for 40 minutes then turn off the oven and open it a tiny bit then leave the meringues to cool completely in the oven. This will take at least 3 hours.
- Whip the cream with the vanilla then fold through the yoghurt.
- To serve, place one meringue on a serving plate and spread with half the cream and berries.
- Top with the second meringue, cream and berries and dust with icing sugar.
- Leave for 15 minutes before serving.
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The post Hazelnut meringue with strawberries – Meringue Mania appeared first on Claire K Creations.