Stand by your meringue

The perfect day, for me, involves good food and conversation with family and friends. Ideally, a game of tennis will be involved but this Memorial Day, once we’d raised a glass to our fallen and serving troops, we played cricket with some English pals in our hosts’ garden under a warm Californian sun.

I tucked my skirt up into my knicker legs and assumed the wicket keeper position for our team. No catches, but I did score a couple of runs before being bowled out.

Julia, Arthur and Marley went to Mexico for the long weekend. “Are they stark raving mad?” asked a fellow cricketer when I told him they’d gone to Rosarita, a resort just over the border. “Three years ago, the chief of police was beheaded there by drug runners,” he said.

Everyone had a Mexico horror story to share so I was relieved when Julia called that night to say they were home safe and sound and had a fantastic time.

My contribution to the Memorial Day feast this side of the border was a traditional English trifle with homemade custard, plus some meringues. I usually make meringues when I make trifle as it’s an ideal way to use up the egg whites left over from the custard. Meringues are gluten free, sublime and simple to make so long as you have parchment or baking paper and an electric whisk.

Ingredients:

Six large egg whites

12 ozs of caster sugar (granulated or baking sugar in the US) – 2ozs per egg white for a smaller batch. Six egg whites will make about 20 small like the ones pictured.

1 pint whipped cream

Recipe:

1. Pre-heat an oven to 250.

2. Line a baking tray or two with parchment or baking paper – greaseproof paper won’t do.

3. Whisk the egg whites together in a large bowl until they form stiff peaks.

4. Fold in the sugar or whisk in on low.

5. Take a tablespoonful of the mixture and place onto the tray using another spoon to ease it off. You can make lots of little ones or two giant plate-size ones and sandwich them together with cream and your favorite fruit. Or cover one with whipped cream and fruit for a classic Pavlova. I think making two large ones into a cake looks most spectacular. Just remember to spread both sides with cream.

6. Cook for two hours. Thanks to the parchment paper they’ll come off easily once they’ve cooled for five minutes. Sandwich two together with whipped cream and arrange on your best plate. Stand by to become very popular indeed.