Make your own meringues – yes you can!

Follow these golden rules and you will make perfect meringues every time, whether you are making the classic meringues or the flavoured meringues on page 336.

• Do not attempt to make meringues without an electric whisk or, better still, a fixed-head whisk (Kenwood, Kitchen Aid or similar). I made them by hand when I was at college, but have never done so since.
• Make sure the whisk and the bowl are absolutely clean and dry. Water or grease will stop egg whites from whisking up.
• Use caster sugar – there are recipes that use a sugar syrup, but for most meringue recipes you need caster sugar. Don’t use granulated as your meringues will end up speckled.
• The egg white mixture needs to dry out rather than cook, so you need to bake your meringues at a low temperature for a long time.
• Always use baking parchment to line the baking sheet. Meringues will stick to a tray, to foil and to greaseproof paper.
• Whisk the egg whites until they are as stiff as they can be and are almost ‘dry’. This will take about five minutes (and five minutes is really quite a long, time when you are whisking!).
• Do not over-whisk once the sugar is added (hence my simple throw-it-inand-stop method). If you do, the meringue will become floppy and will ‘weep’ sugar on cooking.