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Friday, September 14, 2012

Strawberry Meringue Baskets - Strawberry #3



I made this sometime ago because I happened to have a tub of greek yogurt. Ipoh's latest shopping center Aeon Station 18 has opened not too long ago and on my first visit, I saw a new range of products brought into Ipoh city :) Finally greek yogurt has arrived.

I've been visually attracted to this meringue basket sometime ago... and it was supposely to be filled with whipped cream and topped with strawberries. I decided to borrow that concept and use greek yogurt and fill it with strawberries too, rather than just on top. And add some texture and flavour contrast with a chocolate ganache as sauce.



Greek yogurt which like all yogurt tastes sour. Strawberries are slightly tart. Dark chocolate sauce is slightly bitterish... perfect to balance up the sweetness from the meringue. My kids, inlaws and my hubby all loved this dessert. My hubby was impressed with this that some time later that when we did some entertaining at home, he asked if I'll be making this for dessert again, LOL. I said no, I don't have greek yogurt on hand. I saw his dissapointed face, LOL.

If you want to ask me, "Wendy, is this sweet? Can I reduce sugar?"

Any meringue will taste sweet. Same goes to pavlova. You can't really reduce the sugar, if not, it might be too soft to pipe out... for meringue. (correct me if I'm wrong). But pavlova is just piling on, still can reduce a bit if you dare. We need to make this to be at a pipable consistency. But if one were to calculate the sugar.... it's about 10gm in each meringue basket as I got 12 pcs of it from this recipe. Same amount of sugar from your chiffon cake if you made it with 120gm of sugar and cut it into 12 pieces. If you cut it lesser than 12 pcs, then there's more sugar in your chiffon cake slice than in one piece of this meringue, although, by comparison this meringue basket definitely tastes much much sweeter. You may happen to eat more than one piece of chiffon cake continously, but I doubt you will take 2 of these in one go due the "sweetness" that you felt while eating You will probably be cautious and restrain yourself. But in fact, it's non less evil. Like I always say, moderation is always the key.



Strawberry Meringue Baskets
Meringue recipe: Golden Book Of Desserts
Assembly: WendyinKK

Meringue Baskets
2 egg whites (60gm)
60gm castor sugar
60gm icing sugar

Other components
Diced strawberries for filling (5mm cubes)
Greek yogurt
Sliced strawberries for deco
Chocolate ganache (melt 1:1 dark chocolate and cream)

1. Beat egg whites with caster sugar until stiff. Put in icing sugar by the teaspoonsful and beat until stiff. At this point, test by rubbing some of the meringue between 2 fingers, it shouldn’t feel gritty.
2. Preheat oven to 110(fan)/130 and line a baking tray with non stick baking paper.
3. Attach a medium sized star tip to a piping bag. Fill piping bag with meringue.
4. Pipe a round base, then create the sides of the basket by swirling the meringue 3 times around.
5. Bake the meringue baskets for 90 minutes. Let them cool down totally in the oven. Keep them airtight if not consuming immediately
6. Assembly: Place some diced strawberries into the meringue basket. Then fill in some greek yogurt. Top with sliced strawberries. Chocolate ganache can be piped onto the meringue or under the meringue, as you wish. Serve immediately.


I assembled these in a different manner because these 6 pcs were to be brought to some relatives.
I can't be having the sauce on the bottom, so they had to be on the top.



 

26 comments:

  1. What a work of art! They look absolutely perfect and beautiful! Is the meringue crispy throughout, or soft inside? I love pavlova though, and I think with cream and fruits, it's not as sweet as I initially thought it was.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tempting ...look like from the hotel dessert bar! 劲

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  3. Fern,
    The meringue can withstand few hours filled. Those packed, I heard were kept in fridge for few hours and could still be lifted.
    The base turns slightly chewy after a while but generally, overall still crispy. That's like... maybe 30 mins later?


    Shenny,
    Haha, I hope I can charge hotel prices for these, LOL

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ha I was just wondering what to do with the one egg white that I have! How many does this recipe yield?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ronni,
    It depends on how big you pipe them.
    I did mention in the 5th paragraph, I got 12 :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your meringue baskets look absolutely beautiful. Stunning especially with the chocolate ganache piped on top of the meringue. Thanks for the great idea.

    ReplyDelete
  7. oops sorry missed that. my mind was going blur when i read the calculation part. pee brain during maternity. unused for a long time. haha. thanks.

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  8. This cakes fits in a top 5 star hotels. Great job!!

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  9. such a beauty! really love the way you dressed up the meringues. True about the sugar, we usually eat many slices of chiffon and yet we dont feel that we are also eating that amt of sugar cos it's light :)

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  10. wow! very nicely made! love the bright color contrast of white, brown and red!

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  11. What type of cream you mix with chocolate? Dairy cream? Sandy

    ReplyDelete
  12. Wendy, these look so yummy and the photos are stunning. May I know what camera do you use? Mine is going to kaput and I'll be buying a new one soon.

    ReplyDelete
  13. The layout is beautiful! Love the explanation on pavlova n meringue too!

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  14. Wendy, very lovely, pretty and definitely yummy!
    what an awesome dessert on a plate! :)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Gorgeous!! Such an "atas" dessert! Cn definitely charge premium prices for these beauties. I just want to stare and admire, too pretty to eat.

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  16. OMG!!!! these are sooooo beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thank you all for the lovely comments.


    Sandy,
    As always it's dairy cream for me.


    Phong Hong,
    I have been using the same camera from the beginning until now.
    I think mine is extinct liao la. Canon 350D, taken using stock lens only.
    If u notice, my earlier pics and now.. hehehe. It's the photographer not the camera. Same camera, diff effect.


    Lala,
    besides the difference in making, there is textural differences to the both.
    Pavlova is supposed to have a cottony center crispy exterior, while meringue is usually crispy throughout.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Made it as also the result so good. My fren said its delicious. Thanks for ur sharing us to recipe.

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  19. I have tried this recipe but my meringue always come out a little brown and not entirely white like yours. I wonder if you might know why.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Vi Vian,
    Temperature, try to use a lower temp.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Hi,

    Would you mind to describe the procedures in further details? Because I've tried twice to get the meringue right, but the soft peaks just wouldn't appear, instead they were runny. I don't know what went wrong, any suggestions?

    ReplyDelete
  22. Zi Ning,
    Manual whisking won't work, unless you beat it for a very very long time quickly.
    If you're using a electric hand mixer, it's quite impossible that it won't turn fluffy, like shaving cream.
    Refer for my pavlova posts, to see how the egg white should look like.

    http://wendyinkk.blogspot.com/2010/03/mixed-fruits-chocolate-pavlova.html

    ReplyDelete
  23. Zi Ning,
    I see that you made macarons before, the egg white process should be similar. The meringue for macarons is stickier, and this will be slightly fluffier.
    Make sure your bowl, beaters are free from oil and egg yolk. Even a little bit of yolk will prevent the whites from getting fluffy.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Oops, sorry for the late reply Wendy, school life resumed so I was kinda carried away by the workload. I actually used electric mixer, but not sure what went wrong still even after trying for the second time. Speaking about macarons, I'm not very sure about the texture because the things is, sadly my macarons have different results everytime, and the chance of getting good outcome is 10%, so I guess I'll needa try out a few more times :/ But thank you for the suggestions, will definitely try them again when sem break arrives :))

    ReplyDelete

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