April 15, 2009 - Meringues and buttercream

I must confess, I did not love the dinner this evening...I guess you win some, you lose some. We had a Grande Aiole and a Caesar Salad. It wasn't really filling enough and the shrimp tasted extra fishy. More room for baked goods!!


Meringues...I wasn't sure how I felt about them before, and I'm still not really sure. I've never loved meringue, the texture and over the top sweetness just leave the feeling of instant cavity in my mouth. However, I do now have a greater appreciation for them after experimenting with a few different recipes. A lot of the issues I had with texture before didn't bother me so much when accompanied by other textures such as fresh fruit or whipped cream. The combination of flavors and textures in the Raspberry Almond Dacquoise was pretty amazing, and that's the one I'll share today.


Making meringue requires a lot of whipping, and a lot of patience. The eggs must be whipped to the correct stiffness, then sugar is added in very slowly. Add the sugar too quickly, and your meringue won't turn out right. Different kinds of meringue have different levels of stability, and are therefore used in different recipes and can be kept for varying levels of time.



My assignment of the evening was: Pavalovas with poached strawberries and a honey lavendar whipped cream. We ended up using fresh berries rather than the poached strawberries because 1. they were not ready and 2. poaching drained quite a bit of the beautifl strawberry red color. I'm not a big fan of warm soft fruit, so I was much happier with the fresh raw version. The honey lavendar whipped cream was interesting...we ground up lavendar in the spice grinder and it was strong. On its own, it actually tasted kind of gross. But when combined with the meringue and the berries, it was quite nice.


While I'm still not a huge fan of meringue itself, it can be used as a base for buttercream frosting, which, of course, I absolutely love. I must say that it really is quite shocking just how much butter goes into a butter cream. It is borderline sickening, but oh my gosh it just tastes so good!! Add some chocolate or fruit puree and it only gets better.


For those of you who are interested in playing with meringue, I give you....


The Delicious Recipe of the Day: Raspberry Almond Dacquoise (Mary Risley)

• 3/4 cup sugar (for almond mixture)
  
• 4 oz almonds
• 6 egg whites
• pinch cream of tartar
• 3/4 cups sugar (for meringue)
  
• 1 cup cream
• 1 cup fresh raspberries
• mint leaves

Preheat oven to 250 degress. Draw 8-4 inch circles on a piece of parchment, turn over, and line a baking sheet with it. Process sugar with almonds in food processor until fine. Put egg whites and cream of tartar in bowl of stand mixer and beat with whip until stif peak. Beat in 3/4 cup sugar, one tablespoon at a time. Fold in almond mixture. Pipe mixture onto parchment circles, about 3/4" thick. Bake for about 60 minutes, or until dry.


Whip cream. Pipe cream on one meringue round, arrange raspberries around edges, then fill in middle. Place another meringue round on top. Decorate with additional cream, berries, and mint. Repeat with remaining meringues.