Meringue wreaths recipe

Ingredients

4 egg whites, at room temperature
half a lemon
250g caster sugar
2 tsp cornflour
1 tsp white wine vinegar

Method

Preheat oven to 180C.

Wipe bowl and beater with inner half of a lemon (this ensures there’s no oil or residue left on the bowl and ensures whites beat to their full potential.)

Beat whites until they form soft peaks. Add sugar, cornflour and white wine vinegar and beat until the mixture is white and glossy (and the sugar is absorbed into the egg whites). Add food colouring if you wish and whisk through.

Trace some circles on baking paper and line baking trays.

With a piping bag – or a ziplock bag if you don’t have one – fill with the meringue mixture, add your piping bag tip, or cut a corner off the bag. Pipe around the circles as closely as you can… it will need to be at least about 1 inch thickness for it to stay together.

Add cachous, or 100’s and 1000’s if you wish to decorate the wreaths.

Turn down the oven to 150C as you place the wreaths in to cook, they will take about 25 minutes.

Let wreaths completely cool on trays. Decorate with bows or edible glitter if you wish.

Notes

This idea actually just popped in my head recently so it was a bit of an experiment, and one that works I think!
After making ice-cream I was left with many egg whites, enough for 2 pavlovas… so I made one pavlova and decided with the other half of the mixture I would make these meringues.
These meringue wreaths are light and a bit chewy on the inside, and would look great glistening under some fairy lights. I’ve decorated with cachous and chocolate, but you could do it with jelly-tots mini raspberries or even hundreds and thousands.
I iced the wreaths with melted dark chocolate (75g) with 1 tbsp of butter mixed through.
This recipe was created by Melissa Klemke for Kidspot, New Zealand’s best recipe finder.