Zebra Meringues

Well, it appears that whilst having a job means that there is money to pay for baking supplies, it unfortunately also means that I’ve not got much time to bake, and even less time to turn that baking into blog posts. And all that is a round about way of apologising for my lack of posting recently. Yesterday I spent the afternoon in the kitchen, in the hopes of coming up with material for at least a couple of blog posts and these meringues were one of the things I made. I last made them just over a month ago but unfortunately whilst taking photos my digital SLR camera decided to break (no fault of my own – something has happened to the shutter), rendering me nice-camera-less and having to make do with a digital point and shoot. So apologies in advance for the quality of the photos in this post. I’m looking forward to the time in the hopefully not-too-distant-future when J will hopefully look at (and fix) the nice camera shutter.

I was going to call these coconut meringues, but when I finished decorating them with chocolate I realised that there was only one suitable name … and so I give to you Zebra Meringues. They are crisp on the outside and chewy in the middle with a smooth chocolate coating. If you prefer them to be more dry and less chewy, leave them in the oven to bake for a bit longer. These ingredients were measured using a 250 ml mug as equal to one cup, and the quantities below make about 35 to 40 meringues, depending on the size.

What you’ll need:

2 egg whites

2/3 cup white sugar

2/3 cup desiccated coconut (the unsweetened one)

Small bar dark chocolate (I used a 50 gram bar)

What to do:

1. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 2 (150º C or 300º F).

2. Beat the egg whites with an electric beater until they reach soft peak stage.

3. Beat the sugar into the egg whites, adding one to two tablespoons of sugar and thoroughly incorporating it before adding the next one to two tablespoons.

4. Add the coconut to the egg whites and sugar and gently fold in.

5. Line a baking tray with non-stick baking parchment and pipe or spoon the meringue mixture on the parchment.

6. Turn the oven down to gas mark 1 (140º C or 275º F) right before putting the meringues into the middle of the oven and baking for about 40 minutes until crisp and dry on the outside.

7. Remove the meringues from the oven and leave to cool on a cooling rack.

8. When the meringues are fully cool, melt the chocolate and drizzle over the cooked meringues (you may need to wait for the chocolate to cool a little first).

9. Leave the meringues in a cool place for the chocolate to set before eating.