Eton Mess

After making an abundance of meringues on Saturday, I shared the recipe and adventure on Facebook.  This struck up a conversation with an acquaintance who is now living in England.  She told me about a dessert they have in England that contains meringues, and told me it is called an Eton Mess, named after the famed Eton College.  I had to make it tonight with the last bit of meringues I had left, because well, it looked and sounded like it was to die for - rest assured, it is! 

A traditional Eton Mess calls for vanilla meringues, muddled strawberries, and vanilla whipped cream.  I only had chocolate meringues on hand, and blackberries were one sale, so this is where a little imagination brought me! 

Eton Mess
Yields 4 generous servings

Ingredients
1 pint heavy cream
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla 
1 pint blackberries 
15 - 20 chocolate meringues

If you don't want to make everything from scratch, you can use store bough meringues and a container of Cool Whip! 

To Prepare the Eton Mess
1. Put the blackberries in a bowl with 2 tablespoons of sugar and smush them down with a fork.  Put them in the fridge until it is time to serve!

2. Pour the heavy cream in a stand mixer on a medium speed, or pour it into a bowl to beat by hand or with a hand mixer. 
3. After the cream has been beating for a few minutes, add 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. 
4. When the cream has turned into the consistency of whipped cream, fold in the blackberries.  If you are serving it later, cover it and put it in the fridge.  The meringues will get soft if they sit, so add them right before serving for the best taste!  If you are serving it immediately, move right along to step 5!

5. Break up the meringues and fold them into the whipped cream bowl. 
6. Garnish with a blackberry or two, and serve!

Chocolate Meringues

Yesterday, while cleaning up the kitchen, I decided that we needed dessert!  Not wanting to have to stand over something that needed constant attention - I really needed to load the dishwasher - I began to think about things that can be "forgotten" about.  I remembered recently pining over my urge to make meringues, and also remembered my reluctance to make them because they required quite a bit of time to make stiff peaks and bake - they were just what I was looking for!  It was not a recipe I had ready at my fingertips, so after some searching I found one that I liked.  I had heard complaints about meringues that do not call for Cream of Tartar.  Most of what I heard was that it was crucial for "binding" and that it would help the meringues last longer after I bake them.

The only problem I had with these was my lack of serving size judgment.  The recipe said that it made 10 meringues, and if I had read further I would have seen that the ones they made were 2 1/2 inches in diameter, while I made mine the size of a half dollar and doubled the recipe...whoops!    Thankfully my family DEVOURED them between last night and today!  The recipe below is my very slight adaptation, but the link to the actual recipe is below, too!

Chocolate Meringues 
Source: www.joyofcooking.com You can find the recipe on their website here!
Yields approximately 10 cookies that are 2 1/2 inches in diameter

Ingredients
3 large egg whites
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 tbsp cocoa powder

To Prepare the Meringues
1. Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees.
2. In a stand mixer, begin beating the egg whites on a medium speed.
3. When the egg whites begin to foam, add the cream of tartar.
4. Add the sugar slowly while continuing to beat the eggs.
5. When the eggs begin to stiffen, add the cocoa powder.
6. Beat the egg whites until the form stiff peaks.  A stiff peak is when you can dip a spoon into the egg, pull it out, flip it over, and it stays in a peak!
7. Pipe or spoon the meringues onto your cookie sheets (I baked mine on a silicone baking sheet, but parchment would help too!), and bake them for an hour and a half to an hour and forty-five. Mine were much smaller than the recipe called for, and only needed an hour and a quarter in the oven
8. When your meringues are done, turn off the heat of the oven, crack the door, and let them sit for at least an hour.  I left mine out on the oven over night and they were even better today!  The less moisture they are exposed to after baking, the better they are!