Meringue roulade is so simple to make and yet so many people shy away from making any kind of Meringue, but here’s the thing, Meringue is delicious right? Everyone should be able to make this with no worries! What follows is how to crack this without drama, with perfect results.
A slice of Meringue, the light as air Meringue cooked to perfection.
The secret when making meringue is to have every utensil scrupulously clean. This means nothing that has been washed by hand in greasy dishwater or dried with a T-towel. The easiest way (and I like easy!) is the dishwasher at 65 degrees and air dry. However, don’t panic if you don’t have a dishwasher, wash the necessary implements in water as hot as you can bear with a good washing up liquid and dry with paper towel. If you want to make super sure, wipe the bowl out with a little lemon juice.
Another essential, the recipe calls for egg whites. Make absolutely sure that no egg yolk escapes into your mix, or it simply won’t work. I separate my eggs over a cup and then transfer the whites to the bowl for whisking to make absolutely sure that if one goes wrong, it doesn’t taint the rest!
Other measures (covering all bases here!) are to add 1 teaspoon of cornflour and one teaspoon of Cider vinegar to the meringue whilst whisking. This has a magic effect on the egg proteins and stabilizes them, greatly reducing the margin for error.
Another tip, when rolling the meringue, is to stop the ingredients just short of the end of the meringue, so as you roll, the filling doesn’t fall out the end! (see picture)
The Meringue before rolling, stop about 5cm short of the end when adding the filling, so that as you roll it doesn’t fall out of the end.
For my meringue roulade, I added coconut, but roasted, flakes almonds would also be a delicious replacement. I toast my coconut ever so slightly over a medium heat in a dry pan first, this releases the natural oils from the coconut, not only smelling delicious, but adding to the flavour too.
I love the tartness of Raspberries with the sweetness of Mango, I think another awesome addition would have been a Passion Fruit sauce, easily made by heating the juice of 2 passion fruit with a teaspoon of caster (fine) sugar in a pan until the sugar has melted. Allow it to cool and drizzle over, truly delicious! It just so happens that passion fruits today were doing a hiding act, they were not available anywhere!
If there is any downside at all to Meringue, is that it doesn’t keep, make it a few hours in advance at most and eat it all the same day (this could be an advantage or a disadvantage I guess!!)
Enjoy! I get requested to make this a lot, because it is simply delicious!
Meringue Roulade, with coconut, raspberries and mango, totally delicious and as light as air!
Ingredients
- 4 large egg whites
- 225g caster Sugar
- 1 tsp cornflour
- 1 tsp cider vinegar (or lemon juice)
- Approx 30g desiccated coconut (25g lightly toasted in a pan over a medium heat)
- 5g to sprinkle raw over meringue before cooking
- 1 large ripe mango, cubed
- 200g frozen raspberries (plus a small punnet to decorate if required)
- 200g of double cream
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 25g caster sugar
- Icing sugar to dust
Instructions
- You will need a scrupulously clean mixing bowl (metal is preferable) and an electric hand mixer.
- Whisk egg whites until forming peaks
- Add the cornflour to the sugar and add mix to the egg whites a little at a time until sugar is completely mixed in.
- Whilst whisking, add Cider vinegar (or lemon juice) and combine.
- Line a standard baking tray with baking paper and evenly sprinkle the toasted desiccated coconut on it.
- With a clean (preferably metal spatula) carefully, evenly spread the meringue mix onto the baking tray.
- Sprinkle the top with raw desiccated coconut.
- Pop into a 170C oven or equivalent for 9 minutes
- Reduce heat to 150C or equivalent and bake for a further 9 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly.
- Place another sheet of baking paper over the meringue and deftly and swiftly flip the meringue onto the other piece of baking paper and onto a solid surface.
- Carefully remove baking paper.
- Allow to cool completely.
- Add the 25g of Caster sugar and the vanilla essence to the cream and whisk until firm.
- Spread the cream onto the meringue, stopping about 5cm short of one edge.
- Sprinkle the fruit evenly onto the cream.
- Using the baking paper, start to roll the meringue (from the edge where there is filling, towards the end where you stopped 5cm short)
- Finally roll onto a plate long enough for it to fit, seam facing down, dust with icing sugar and decorate with raspberries.
Leave a Reply