Chocolate Meringues

Despite the Zuger Kirschtorte, I STILL had some egg whites to dispose of - hence, meringues. With only three ingredients, this was the quickest and easiest way to get rid of the remaining whites.

This recipe uses the 'Swiss method' and is taken from the Bourke Street Bakery cookbook.



Chocolate meringues

The proportion is 1 part eggs to 2 parts sugar. I actually used 170g egg white to a whopping 340g sugar, but the purposes of this recipe I've kept BSB's measurements.

105g egg whites (about 3)
210g caster sugar
70g unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted into a bowl


Preheat oven to 130C.

Stir egg white and sugar in a very clean stainless steel bowl. Place the bowl over a saucepan of boiling water and stir continually, scraping down the sides with a rubber spatula.

When the liquid is smooth and clear, remove from heat. Wipe the bottom of the bowl to prevent water from contacting the mix.

Whisk the warm liquid in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer until it's cool and firm peaks form. This will take about 10 minutes. My mix looked very white and very sticky.

Using a large spoon, scoop up a meringue and drop it into the cocoa powder. BSB suggests swirling the bowl so it's completely coated. This sounds so easy! Needless to say I made a mess.

Place meringues on a tray lined with baking paper. Using the tips of your fingers, 'drag' the meringue upwards a little to streak the chocolate and create a peak. Or try, anyway.

Turn the oven to 100C and bake meringues for approximately 90 minutes or until they're crisp outside and soft in the centre. (BSB suggests if you want them crispy all the way through, you can bake them for up to 6 hours!)

BSB's proportions make 12-18 small meringues or 4-6 large ones. Starting with more mixture, I made 20 medium sized ones, just to be different.

Uniformity not being one of my strong points, my meringues all turned out so different-looking!

This one reminded me of a poached egg:



This one was a bit like larvae from Alien:



And I don't know, some kind of cloud formation? Or something.




Adapted from 'Bourke Street Bakery' by Paul Allam and David McGuinness

Zuger Kirschtorte

After last week's Crack Pie extravanganza, I found myself with eight egg whites to dispose of. What to do, what to do? Pavlova, meringues, macarons?

A Swiss friend from work suggested this classic Swiss torte - it's basically a genoise sponge, sandwiched between two meringues and flavoured with kirsch (cherry liqueur).

I've known for a long time that presentation is my weak flank but it's particularly obvious when the original looks as gorgeous as it does. I tried! I really tried! But it wasn't to be. I NEED TO WORK ON THIS.

Otherwise, I think it was a success. It's a reasonably light cake, with just enough sweetness in the cream and flavour from the kirsch. The texture of the meringues was great, quite soft and chewy - it reminded me very much of the base of a particular variety of chocolate cream and sponge cake you can get in Chinatown bakeries. And that was a long sentence leading nowhere in particular.

We ate this while watching Master Chef - Iron Chef Sakai was guest judge! - and drinking tea. Nice.




Zuger Kirschtorte

This cake will require a long run-up time because of the meringues - you need to allow at least 4 hours for them to cool in your oven, and during this time of course you can't really start on the genoise sponge cake. I ended up making this over two days: I baked the meringues and genoise cake on day 1, sealed them in an airtight container overnight, then did the cream, syrup, and assembly on day 2.


ALMOND MERINGUE
4 egg whites
120g confectioners' sugar
20g corn starch
100g almond meal/ground almonds

Preheat the oven to 160ºC/320ºF. Draw two 25cm (10in) circles in a large piece of parchment/baking paper, on a baking sheet. Generously butter the insides of each circle.

Sift the confectioners' sugar in a small bowl, add the corn starch and almond meal; set aside.

Beat the egg whites until stiff; remove the bowl from the mixer and, using a rubber spatula, delicately fold the reserved ingredients into the egg whites.

Spread the mixture inside the circles, leaving 0.5cm of the edges free of meringue – it will spread.

Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until the meringue is golden. Turn off the oven and allow meringue to cool inside, for at least 4 hours (can be made overnight).


GENOISE
3 eggs, egg whites and yolks separated
3 tablespoons hot water
80g confectioners' sugar, sifted
10g caster sugar
50g all purpose flour
50g corn starch
pinch of baking powder


Preheat the oven to 175ºC/350ºF; butter a 25cm (10in) springform round cake pan (I used one with a removable bottom), line the bottom with baking paper and butter the paper as well.

Using a mixer, beat the egg yolks with the water until thick and light. Add the confectioners’ sugar gradually and beat well. Set aside. (I beat the yolks by hand, due to a shortage of bowls/equipment, and saved the stand mixer for the egg whites which are so much harder to beat.)

Beat the egg whites until stiff; add the caster sugar and beat well. Remove the bowl from the mixer and add the yolk cream to the egg whites. Sift the flour, corn starch and baking powder over the mixture and fold in carefully with a rubber spatula.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until cooked through – the cake will pull apart from the sides of the pan when baked. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool completely.


BUTTERCREAM
150g unsalted butter, room temperature
150g confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 egg yolk
50g currant jam – I used black cherry jam which gave the cream quite a rich colour

Beat the butter until light and creamy. Add the confectioners’ sugar gradually, beating well. Add the egg yolk and jam, beat well until smooth.


SYRUP
4 tablespoons water
20g caster sugar
120ml kirsch - this can be hard to obtain, you may have to look around at a few liquor stores. It's also VERY strong, so I ended up halving this part of the recipe.

In a small saucepan, combine water and sugar over medium-high heat until it starts boiling. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool. Add the kirsch and mix well. Set aside.


TOPPING
100g almonds, toasted and chopped
70g confectioners' sugar


ASSEMBLY

Very carefully, peel the meringue disks off the baking paper and place one of them on a serving plate. Spread 1/3 of the buttercream over the meringue. Place the cake on top of it and brush it generously with the syrup. (As above - I didn't use all the syrup because kirsch is so strong in taste.)

Carefully spread 1/3 of the buttercream over the cake. Cover with the other meringue disk. (As I found it hard to spread the cream without damaging the cake, I spread the cream on the bottom of the top meringue disk and then put that on top.)

Spread the remaining buttercream on the sides of the cake and "stick" the chopped almonds on the cream. (This is hard! VERY VERY HARD. I have no advice except perhaps don't chop the almonds too finely.)

Using a sieve, sprinkle the top of the cake with the confectioners' sugar. Draw a criss-cross pattern on the sugar using the back of a knife.

Keep it refrigerated, but serve it at room temperature – the cake gets hard in the fridge.


From Technicolor Kitchen