Meringue Mushrooms

I love meringue.  Mainly because of all the things you can make out of it.  Mushrooms are fun.  Plus any ones that get “accidently broken” can be turned into perfect one person portions of Eton Mess. 

Ingredients

2 egg whites

100gr caster sugar

¼ tsp white wine vinegar

Melted chocolate (for gluing the caps to the stems)

Method

1, Make sure that your bowl and whisk/whisk attachment is spotlessly clean.

2, Beat the egg whites until they are foamy and add in the vinegar.

3, Carry on beating the egg whites until they reach soft peaks.

4, Turn the speed up and slowly start adding in the caster sugar.

5, Carry on beating the mixture until you can rub a tiny bit between your fingers and it doesn’t feel grainy. 

6, Preheat your oven to 100o/c

7, Line two backing sheets with non-stick or greaseproof paper

8, Spoon the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a large round nozzle. 

9, Pipe stems by holding the piping bag vertically and evenly squeezing the bag and lifting the nozzle.  This will give you a little pillar of meringue.  Use a finger dipped in water to flatten the top of the pillar.

10, To pipe caps, again hold the piping bag vertically to the lined baking tray and squeeze.  Let the meringue form a little disc, keep squeezing and lift the piping bag slowly.  Again, use a damp finger to smooth out any peaks or ripples that may have formed.

11, Bake for 2 hours, turn off the oven, leave them to cool completely before removing from the trays.

12, Use the melted chocolate as glue to stick the caps to the stems.  Dust with a little cocoa powder for a mushroomy look.

Original recipe here

You can colour the meringue to make coloured tops too.  Divide it, pipe stems, reserve a little white meringue for detailing, colour the remaining and pipe caps and then clean out and reload the bag with a small tip and the white meringue.  Pipe little dots over the surface of the coloured caps and use a damp finger to gently smooth down any peaks.  Cook as before. 

*hums the Mario theme tune*