Raspberry & Pistachio Meringues with Dark Chocolate Whipped Ganache

Raspberry & Pistachio Meringues with Dark Chocolate Whipped Ganache

Pink and delicious

 Meringues, sweet little clouds of joy, or tooth rotting lumps of sugar?

Which side of the fence do you come down on?

 I’m somewhere the middle, depending on the meringue in front of me.

 One of my sisters is a big fan of pavlova, a larger version of these pretty pink raspberry mounds.

Those rare times we get to eat out, if there’s a sneaky pavlova on the menu, she normally doesn’t need a lot of encouragement to place her order. Although I think she has the same reaction if there’s sticky toffee pudding floating about, especially if it has custard.

 I hadn’t thought about meringues being so polarising before writing this, but as I meander through the virtues of castor sugar or golden castor sugar, and of course chatting to my sister and the lovely Mr G, I wondered why I wasn’t a meringue enthusiast.

 Benefits of the meringue:

*Easy to make

*Minimum Ingredients

*Can make them in many sizes

*Can add flavours to the meringues

*Great for sharing

 Not so many benefits

*Lots of sugar

 Looking at these two lists, it’s easy to see why they’re so popular, but no matter how tasty the meringues you normally make are, I think these pink raspberry treats will give them a run for their money.

Go on, give them a go, and enjoy your sweet life.

How will you eat yours?

 What You Need

• 2 Egg Whites

• 200g Castor Sugar

• 1 Punnet of Fresh Raspberries – cleaned and dried

• 75g of Pistachios, shelled and finely chopped plus extra for decorating.

• 4 Tablespoon Icing Sugar

• 150g Dark Chocolate – Chopped into small pieces

• 300ml Double Cream

• Pinch of Salt

Ready for the oven

How It’s Done

• Place the raspberries into a bowl along with the icing sugar.

• Mix all the icing sugar in and using a fork, squash and squish until the raspberries are all mushed up. Keep mushing them until they release all of their juice.

• Let the mixture sit until needed later.

• When ready to use, push the raspberry mush through a fine sieve until all of the juice is saved into a separate bowl ready to add to the meringue mixture. – See Tip Box

• Place the chopped chocolate and cream into a microwavable bowl.

• Place into the microwave for 1 minute. Give the chocolate a stir.

• Return to the microwave and heat for another 30 seconds. Stir, and then back into the microwave for another 30 seconds - See Tip Box

• When the chocolate has completely melted, give the chocolate mixture a really good mix and set the ganache aside to cool.

• Once completely cooled and thicker, place into a mixing bowl and whip until the ganache is thick and lighter in colour. – See Tip Box

• Heat the oven to 100c

• Line two oven trays with non-stick parchment.

• Put the egg whites and the salt into a clean bowl and whip until they are full of air, at least triple the size, and when you turn the bowl upside down, they don’t move -See Tip Box

Once the egg whites are light and full enough so that they don’t move when tipped upside down, start to add the castor sugar one tablespoon at a time- See Tip Box

• Once all the sugar is combined with the egg whites you should be left with a glossy meringue.

• Add 4 tablespoons of the raspberry coolie to the meringue mixture along with the chopped pistachio nuts and continue whipping until everything is incorporated and the meringue thickens up again. – See Tip Box

• Spoon apricot size mounds of the pink meringue onto the prepared baking trays. Leave two-inch gaps between each mound. – See Tip Box

• Place in the oven and cook for 1 hour so the outside is nice and crispy and the inside is slightly chewy.

• After an hour, turn the oven off, open the door and leave the cooked meringues in the oven until completely cooled – with the oven door ajar.

• Once they are completely cold, sandwich them together with the dark chocolate whipped ganache.

• Serve with more chopped pistachios on the plate.

Extra chopped pistachio nuts add an extra crunch

Tip Box

• Beat the eggs – 1) When beating the egg whites, be sure that the bowl is very clean and grease free otherwise the egg white won’t whip up.

2) When separating the egg whites from the egg yolks, be very careful that not even a drop of the egg yolk gets into the egg whites, or they won’t beat very well.

• Castor Sugar – Add the castor sugar very slowly to the egg whites. Before the next tablespoon is added, make sure the last tablespoon is fully incorporated.

• Chocolate -1) If the chocolate has not fully melted, return for another 30 seconds. Be careful not to overheat the ganache as it will burn very easily

2) It may take longer than expected to whip the cooled ganache. It’s worth the wait. You’ll know when it’s ready – it will look light in colour and texture, a lot like a chocolate mousse consistency.

• Raspberries – The aim of mixing the icing sugar and raspberries together is to make a raspberry coolie to add to the meringue mixture.

• Meringue -1) When the coolie is first added to the meringue, it will get a little bit runny. When you start to beat the meringue again the meringue will go back to the right consistency.

2) When spooning the meringue onto the prepared oven tray, try to keep them in mounds rather than spread out.

Whipped dark chocolate ganache add even more luxury and taste