My meringue trials and tribulations all began a few months ago when a colleague and I were talking about growing soft fruit. I am growing raspberries and blueberries in tubs and he is lucky to have a large garden so can grow raspberries in the ground. He said he would bring in some raspberries and I rashly suggested I could make a meringue (never having made one before, you understand!) and we could have a pavlova at work.
So, the months rolled on and last week he brought in some raspberries. I used a Delia recipe and made my first attempt. It turned out rather browner than I would have liked and was very squidgy in the middle. So we had to have Eton Mess with the outer, crispier bit, but that was very tasty.
Undeterred, I looked on the internet to see what I may have done wrong and discovered that 1) I hadn't whipped the egg whites for long enough and 2) the oven temperature was too high.
Yesterday, I tried again. I whipped the egg whites until I could put the bowl upside down over my head without them moving and I lowered the oven temperature and put the meringue on the bottom shelf.
Here it is when baked - SUCCESS!
