After 1 day and 2 nights of still eating all sorts of leftovers, I’m quite certain that you still have small unused, uncooked or unbaked ingredients as leftovers to use up too ! Little bits and pieces of stuff, here and there and everywhere, as well as little jars of stuff in your pantry and refrigerator too, like EGG WHITES most probably (which are one of the main ingredients here) and little pieces of dried fruits, candied fruits, nuts, caramels and chocolate too.
I talked about this over 1 year ago, during the holidays but didn’t publish this super simple recipe so here it goes, since this year, none of you will be heading outside your warm and cozy homes to brave the cold and battle with the POST-CHRISTMAS BOXING-DAY SALES chaos.
The physical mechanics of MERINGUES are already simple but this is even simpler and pretty much foolproof and failproof.
To beat egg whites into stiff peaks, you’ll always require whipping equipment and a small pinch of salt and a few drops of vinegar or lemon juice but we’ll increase the acid content a bit here. To get a glossy and sweet meringue, you usually need 1 ½ times as much extra fine or castor sugar which is not as fine as icing sugar but almost. Icing sugar always has a bit of cornstarch in it, to avoid it from clumping, so we’ll increase the ratio of cornstarch in the extra fine castor sugar too, to stabilize it better. Adding chunks of stuff, like nuts, dried fruits and other sweet things will reinforce the structure, like a skeleton does, in your body. And finally, baking is often tricky, it’s usually at low heat for two hours, but in this case, we’ll preheat the oven to a higher temperature and turn it off once we place the meringues inside and then just forget about them as they bake slowly but also cool down slowly, so you can just leave them in there for many hours or until the next morning. They’ll be fine and dandy, crisp and crunchy on the outside and slightly gooey in the center.
You’re all staying home anyways so don’t even pretend you’re too busy and have anything better to do so just make these NOW and stop your whining (unless you’re having some leftover cheese to go with that fine w(h)ine) and enjoy ! … :)
