When you are lucky enough to acquire a brand new Kitchenaid and six blood oranges in the space of time between breakfast and lunch on a Saturday, you know that it’s going to be a great weekend. That was last weekend, folks.
There was really only one thing to be done – put the two together and make some blood orange meringues. And then when you realise that you also have some passionfruits and it really would be quite nice to have something to dollop on top of the meringues, well then you make curd.
Scroll down for the how-to.
p.s. I totally realise that this is the first time I’ve posted in four months. If you are reading this, thanks for sticking with me. I’ll be following up with a few thoughts on the future of this blog in the next week or so, but for now, yay new blog post!
What to do:
Preheat the oven to 110°C (or 230°F), then whip up some classic meringue. To make four individual sized meringues I used three eggs whites and six heaped tablespoons of sugar. To make more, just use two tablespoons of white sugar per egg white.
In your stand mixer (woohoo, I can finally say that!) whisk the egg whites until they are fluffy and have doubled in size. Add the sugar slowly, one tablespoon at a time and keep whisking until the sugar is fully incorporated. To check, stop your mixer, use a clean metal spoon to take out a tiny amount of mixture and rub it between your fingers. You shouldn’t be able to feel a lot of sugar grains. The meringue mix should be glossy, and stand up in stiff peaks.
While you mixer is mixing, squeeze the juice from three blood oranges. Once your meringue is ready add a couple of teaspoons of juice to the meringue mix, using a clean metal spoon to fold it through. Put the rest of the juice aside. Be careful not to add too much juice, as the liquid will mess with the structure of your meringue. The orange flavour comes through very strong so you really don’t need much.
Spoon mounds of meringue onto a tray lined with baking paper, using two metal spoons for dolloping and shaping (if needed). Did I mention you will need lots of metal spoons for this?!
Turn the oven down to 90°C or 194°F and bake the meringues on the middle shelf for 90 minutes.
In the meantime, make your curd. This was the first time I have ever made curd! It turned out really well. I followed this recipe, but I substituted half of the passionfruit pulp for blood orange juice. To get a pip-less curd like mine, push the passion fruit pulp though a fine mesh sieve.
Once baked and cooled, serve the meringues with a generous heap of curd, and prepare to see them disappear in five seconds flat.
