Els's mess

There is a traditional English dessert called Eton Mess, which consists of crumbled meringue whipped cream and strawberries.  Very easy and actually rather good. This variation on the Eton Mess was done by a new friend who I met whilst staying with a friend on my quick trip to England.  We were having a small dinner party one night and Els offered to make her signature dessert. She did not have a name for it, but due to it's resemblance to Eton Mess we called it Els's Mess.

Very quick and simple but it really needs to be put together at the last minute or the meringue will go soggy. Hard for me to give quantities here as really you can make as little or as much as you want depending on the number of people for dinner, but here are the basic ingredients with proportions.

Pre made or bought meringue (about one nest per person)
Greek yogurt (If you use 0% this is actually quite a light dessert)
Lightly whipped cream (equal quantity to yogurt)
Lemon juice (juice of one lemon to about a cup of yogurt)
Frozen raspberries and blueberries (about a 1/4 cup per person)


Earlier in the day crumble half the meringue in to the bottom of the individual serving dishes we used cut glass tumblers.

Mix the yogurt and cream together and add the lemon juice.  I think I would add some lemon zest as well to punch up the flavour even more.  Keep the yogurt/cream mixture in the fridge until ready to assemble.  I think you could make this with just yogurt as long as you had a good quality Greek yogurt, then it would be almost a diet dessert!

Lime and blueberry pavlova

I am not a big dessert person and I rarely make one unless I am entertaining and sometimes not even then.  But I had some lime curd left over from making the coconut lime cake last week and it seemed a pity to see it go to waste.  Cooking for an appreciative audience is always a pleasure and I knew if I made a meringue based dessert I would have an appreciative audience in Nancy who loves meringues and pavlovas.

And so a dessert is born

4 egg whites
1 1/2 cups icing sugar

Lime or lemon curd, you could buy this if you did not want to make it.

1 small carton of whipping cream whipped

Preheat oven to 250. Place the egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until stiff peaks form. Gradually add the sugar, when it has all been added beat for 5 minutes until the mixture is thick and glossy. 

You could just dollop this on to a parchment paper covered cookie sheet, or, as I did pipe it into two equally sized oblongs. I had marked out shapes on the paper and then turned it over.

Individual pavlovas

My good friend Nancy's favourite dessert is pavlova, or in fact any dessert made with meringue, when she heard that I had made a hazelnut meringue with nutella cream she was sorry she had missed it, so I decided to make a meringue based dessert last Saturday over at her house.

4 egg whites
1 cup of white sugar
1 teaspoon of vinegar

Whipped cream and fruit

Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then start adding the sugar a 1/4 cup at a time whisking well between each addition.  After the sugar has been combined continue to to whisk for about 4 minutes, the meringue should be stiff and glossy and the sugar should be dissolved completely add the vinegar and whisk for a further minute.

Plop the meringue on to a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and shape into rough nest shapes.

This made 6 nests, but you could of course just make one large one.

A close up of one of the nests

Hazelnut meringue with nutella cream

For Easter dinner I wanted to make a special dessert, and I had 4 egg yolks in my fridge left over from making custard, so a meringue dessert was in order.  I got the inspiration for this from the Donna Hay on line magazine, which I highly recommend.  The pictures are beautiful, and the lay out of the magazine is innovative, and works as a resource so much better than taking the printed version and converting the pages to screens. I changed the recipe a fair bit and my pictures are not nearly as beautiful, but it tasted great any way

4 egg whites
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1 tablespoon of cornstarch
1 cup of ground hazelnuts
2 cups of whipping cream
2 heaped tablespoons of nutella


Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then add the sugar 1/4 cup at a time. Then continue to whisk for 4 or 5 minutes until the mixture is thick and glossy.

Add the cornstarch and ground hazelnuts.