Baked with Love

Anyone who has some sort of experience in baking knows that meringue cookies have a very long, and tedious process, but I’m here to tell you, that once you bite into this light, crunchy, melt-inyour-mouth meringues, all the time and effort you put into making them will be worth it.

The first thing that you want to do is to wipe down the whisk attachment to your electric or stand mixer, and bowl with vinegar or lemon juice. This ensures that any fat residue from the equipment gets eliminated, allowing the meringue to get to the thickest and glossiest consistency possible.

1. Another important tip is to blend your caster sugar, so: once you’ve measured out the amount you need, put it in a blender and blend for around 5-15 seconds. The size of the sugar grains should be between caster and icing sugar, and should also be able to flow like sand once sprinkled from a high distance.

2. To ensure your meringues get the best result, your egg whites should not have a single drop of egg yolk. If you break your yolk, I recommend using that egg for something else, like an omelette, and separating another one instead. This allows the meringue to whip up as best as possible.

3. Now that we have all of that out of the way, it is time to start making the meringue. To a large bowl add in the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt. Make sure your mixer has the whisk attachment in order to aerate the egg whites as much as possible. Mix for around 23 minutes on medium high speed, or until the egg whites have become very bubbly, but not opaque yet.

4. Once that happens, take a teaspoon of the sugar, and add it in to the bowl, while still mixing. Keep doing this, adding the sugar in gradually, until you have added all of it. (This should have taken about 25-30 minutes)

5. Once the consistency of the meringue has stiff peaks, and looks like marshmallows, add in the vanilla extract.

6. Preheat your oven to 100 Celsius. In the meantime, pipe your meringues onto a baking tray lines with parchment paper. You can pipe them close to each other since they won’t spread.

• 5 tablespoons of butter at room

• 7 tablespoons of sugar • 85 grams dark baking

• 90 grams egg whites (from 3

• 54 grams egg yolks (from 3

• ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract • ¼ teaspoon salt • ¼ teaspoon of cream of tartar

This chocolate souffle tastes like magic; a rich chocolate flavour with many air bubbles… a firm outer edge, but gooey and delicious on the inside. All of these things combined into a single ramekin will be one of the best sweet desserts you have ever tasted.

This recipe makes 4 souffles, baked in ramekins holding up to 140g.

1. Take the ramekins and use 2 tablespoons of the butter to brush all of them with vertical brush strokes using a pastry brush all around. This will help the souffle rise.

2. Once that step is complete on all 4 ramekins, coat each ramekin with 1 tablespoon of sugar each, making sure to rotate it 360 degrees to ensure full coverage from the sugar.

3. Refrigerate the ramekins until you are ready to use them.

4. Fill a saucepan with around 6cm of water. Place it over high heat and let it boil. Once it boils, reduce the heat so it starts simmering.

5. Place a heatproof large bowl over the saucepan with simmering water. If the bowl touches the water, you might have to pour out some water. Ensure that only the steam is touching the bowl.

6. In the bowl, put the chocolate, which should be chopped up into small pieces, and the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter. Mix continuously until everything has melted, and the mixture is shiny. Take off the heat and set aside to cool when that happens.

7. In another a medium bowl, use the paddle attachment on your mixer to combine the egg yolks, vanilla, and salt.

8. In a third large bowl, whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar using the whisk attachment on high speed. Once the mixture is frothy, very gradually add in the remaining 3 tablespoons of sugar. By the time you add the last bit of your sugar, the mixture should have stiff peaks. If it doesn’t, continue whipping it until they form.

9. In three batches, add in the egg white mixture into the chocolate with a spatula. Make sure to not pop many air bubbles.

10. Refrigerate the for 10 minutes. Preheat your oven to 204 Celsius

12. Take your ramekins and batter out of the fridge. Using a spoon, fill each ramekin about 3/4th of the way. A very crucial step to ensure they rise easily is to run your finger around the edge of the circle, unsticking the top of the batter from the sides.

13. Put the ramekins in a tray that can fit them all, and into the preheated oven for 12-14 minutes.

1. (For the white chocolate cream) In a small saucepan, pour 70ml of the double cream and place on low heat. In the meantime, chop up the chocolate and place in a bowl. When the double cream starts simmering, take it off the heat and pour it over the chocolate. Stir until melted, then, cover with clingfilm and put it in the fridge until you are ready to use it.

2. (For the strawberries) Put the sugar, lemon juice, vanilla pod, and strawberries into a saucepan over medium heat, make sure to stir regularly. Cook for 4-5 minutes, or until the mixture boils. Then, set aside to cool.

3. Line a large baking tray with parchment paper. Then, take the eight 8cm cake rings and place them on the tray. Set aside until the batter is ready.

4. (For the cake) In a heatproof bowl, add the eggs, sugar, vanilla beans, and lemon zest. Take a pot or saucepan and fill it a couple centimetres high with water. Place on medium heat and let simmer.

5. Once the water starts simmering place the bowl with the eggs, sugar, vanilla beans and lemon zest in the saucepan or pot, making sure that only steam touches the bottom of the bowl, and not the water. Whisk for about 5 minutes, or until frothy and creamy.

6. Once that is complete, remove the bowl from the heat and whip it up with the whisk attachment on your mixer until the volume has tripled, and the bottom of the bowl isn’t warm.

7. Melt the butter and set it aside.

8. In a medium bowl, combine the salt and flour and sift it 2 times

9. Sift half the dry ingredients over the egg mixture, and gently fold with a spatula to combine. Then, sift the other half and fold again.

10. Drizzle in the cooled butter, and once again, fold to combine.

11. Spoon the batter into the cake rings and fill about 2/3rds of the way up.

12. Bake for 15-18 minutes at 170 Celsius. Once out of the oven, wait for them to completely cool down before removing the cake ring.

13. When ready to assemble, take the white chocolate cream out of the fridge and add the remaining 120ml of double cream. Whip it with a whisk attachment on your mixer on medium high for about 30 seconds.

14. Slice the cakes in half, horizontally, and pipe the white chocolate cream on the bottom half of the cake. After that, put a tablespoon of the strawberry jam on top of the cream, and put the top half of the cake on top.

This sponge cake has the perfect balance of sweetness from all of the components. They are 2layered mini sponge cakes with a smooth chocolate cream and delicious strawberry jam sandwiched between the layers. A dusting of icing sugar makes this desert fancy-looking, as well as adding an extra kick of sweetness.