I grew up in county Wexford in Ireland, which is well known for its delicious strawberries. Wexford strawberries are indescribably good. In fact I have never tasted a strawberry that tastes as good as a Wexford strawberry. When I was growing up, we had a small strawberry patch behind our house. The minute the strawberries would start to ripen, I would watch that strawberry patch like a hawk! As soon as the first strawberries were barely blushed red, I would devour them there and then. I am not sure that the rest of the family ever got to eat many of our home grown strawberries 😉 Now, that we have moved over here to Seattle, I am trying to find some nice Northwest strawberries, that taste as good as Wexford ones. At home, you can buy strawberries in punnets on the side of the road. Here, it’s quite popular to go to the strawberry fields and pick your own. So, last Saturday we set off to Remlinger farm to pick some strawberries. It’s a fun morning, to go strawberry picking, and the fields were full of kids and (deers!) Well, just the one deer, who seemed to be mightily enjoying himself, munching on strawberries. I am not sure he paid for them though!
The strawberries we picked were very tasty, though maybe not quite the same as the ones from home. I decided to whip up a few meringues to go with our freshly picked strawberries. I added some passion fruit too, which complements the strawberries so well. Meringues are a really quick and easy dessert and perfect with summer fruits.
Ingredients
- 4 egg whites
- 220g /1 cup of castor sugar
To serve
- ½ a pint of cream, whipped
- 150g / 1 cup of strawberries, sliced
- 2 passion fruit, seeds scooped out
- Fresh mint
Method
Preheat the oven to 150 C / 300 F. Line 2 large baking sheets with baking paper. The key to meringues is having a really clean bowl to whip your eggs -make sure the bowl is perfectly dry and free of grease. Ideally your egg whites should also be at room temperature, and not straight from fridge.
Whip the egg whites and sugar together with an electric beaters or in a stand mixer. Whisk them together until the egg whites form stiff peaks. The texture will have changed slightly and should appear glossy and stiff. Place the meringue mixture into a piping bag and pipe circular meringues onto the baking paper. You could also pipe heart shaped meringues if preferred. Place the meringues into the preheated oven and bake for about 45 minutes to an hour (depending on size).The meringues should be crisp and dry, and peel off the paper easily.
Turn off the oven and allow the meringues to cool in the oven. If you take them out straight away, they will crack. Once the meringues are fully cool, remove from the oven. Serve with a good dollop of whipped cream, sliced strawberries, some passion fruit and a sprig of mint.
