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Gimme some (brown) sugar baby...

I love me some brown sugar meringues. They remind me of my childhood when Marina's mother would make them and I would swap anything, ANYTHING for one of them at lunchtime. They were crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside and they were amazingly delicious.

crunchily delicious
My mother didn't make anything like this, in fact my mother did not bake at all. She was of the hippie stir fry variety of mother - she occasionally whipped up creamed rice, rice pudding and lemon delicious pudding. Cakes, no. It's possible that the reason why I bake so much is linked to some repressed desire for a different childhood - or because I like cake. A bit of both. Good session guys!

I still love meringues and I make them from time to time as a sort of peace offering to my Dad who cannot have gluten and to whet all my brimming crunchy/soft desires.

Recipe (no idea where I go this from - online somewhere)
100g castor sugar (I just watched Some Like it Hot again and each time I write sugar I imagine Marilyn saying "Sugar Cane")
80g brown sugar
4 egg whites

Preheat the oven to 120. Yes, 120 - real low. 

Separate the whites from the yolks, remember they have been together from birth and so be firm, but kind. Beat the eggs until soft flowing white peaks form - almost as if from thin air - think Mont Blanc.

Gabe, beating as if his life depended on it.
Black and white "Art" shot of peaks, peaking...




















Slowly "rain in" the castor sugar and beat well at the same time - all my mad beating/raining skillz are at play here. I beat, I rain, I bring that shit on. The mix thickens in a satisfying manner and looks a bit glossy and silky and smug. You will know that it is ready when it is so smug that you want to hit it.

You then add the brown sugar in the same way - it gets a nice caramel colour to it and starts to look like cream. The mix should be firm and a lot like whipped cream, holding it's shape and standing to attention when encouraged.

Firm, yet yielding, like real breasts.
I like big meringues and I like them free formed. I was contemplating piping them, like the Irish pipers of yore, but I figured that would make them uniform and samey. Marina's Mum's meringues were always so free and crazy, spiky and wild. I couldn't do that to mine - make them all the same. I use a spoon and just plop a big blob onto a tray lined with some baking paper.

Woo! Non conformity! 




Bake them for about 50 mins - check them after about 30 and see if they are hard to the touch. I like them a bit soft inside so I tend to bake them for 35 to 40. Then turn the oven off and prop it open with a wooden spoon or beta videotape, laserdisc or mp3 player. Let those bad boys cool in the oven.

Enjoy. Remember I will do virtually anything for one of these.


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