Thursday, December 14, 2006

Raspberry marshmallows and lime meringues

K. made 15 creme brulees for a housewarming party recently, and we were left with fifteen egg whites. Usually this would have resulted in A) eggwhites thrown simply to the bin (K's usual - shocking! - method); or B) eggwhites being put into a bowl and away in the fridge for later use (and eventually into the bin a few days later; my occasional method). But as there's a beautiful early Christmas gift in our kitchen now, there was no excuse for not doing anything useful with those eggwhites.

After some late night and last minute discussions (it was nearly 10pm by that time), we decided to friendlily divide the egg whites into two batches (approximately-exactly seven and a half egg whites each:) and proceed each with our own recipe.

After all, co-habiting is all about sharing, isn't it?

K. whipped up a batch of egg-white based marshmallows, using the Polish raspberry syrup that Dagmar gave me as a surprise gift when I was in Stockholm in July. It was the first time that either of us had tackled marshmallows, and we were very pleased with the result. There will be surely lots of various marshmallow recipes tested in our kitchen, including one without eggwhites.



I, on the other hand, made lime meringues with half of the eggwhites. I used a recipe for wedding meringues from Nigella's Feast, calling for nothing but egg whites and caster sugar. I gently folded in a finely grated zest of one lime, and the resulting meringues were beautifully crisp on the outside and just a wee bit marshmallowy-chewy inside, with a nice citrussy kick to them.



Lovely. Both of them.

[Liisu - beseeküpsiste retsept on siin, vahukommide oma tuleb siia]

8 comments:

Cerebrum said...

OOoh, what loveley marshmallows and meringues! I just tried making marshmallows recently - no good, at all. But they didn't have egg whites in them - I might just have to try that...

Anonymous said...

They look lovely! And what a great idea using the syrop in the marshmallows recipe!

When I was 15 I had a period when I made marshmallows all the time and everyone loved them and asked me to do them again and again :-) Now it's been a long while since i made them so maybe it's time again. But this time I'll also try to add raspberry syrop (and cherry syrop as well) becuase it sounds like a great idea!

Anonymous said...

The raspberry syrup would have been a great addition. I failed at my first marchmallow making attempt... I've seen so many people do it successfully though lately, that I think I need to give it another try.

Anonymous said...

Oh nice, nice! I am just like you, you know, using the shocking method too, because sometimes I just have too many egg whites too!

Anonymous said...

dear pille, they both look lovely; i can only imagine how fantastic they must taste too!

Anonymous said...

minulgi seisab just eilsest 8 munavalget külmkapis, aga šokkmeetodi kasutamise eest saaksin küll nahutada kõigi eelnevate põlvkondade poolt. ei beseede ega vahukommide tegemiseni pole ma veel kordagi jõudnud, aga võib-olla on just täna see päev, kuigi midagi tuleb kindlasti jätta klassikalise kooreta keedetud munavalge-pasteedisaia jaoks!:)

Anonymous said...

Hi Pille, congratulations on the Kitchenaid! It's really a life-changing appliance. ;) Although I still haven't used mine quite as much as I would have liked, I often get it out of the cupboard just to gaze at it fondly.

I'm expecting a surplus of egg whites over the next few days as I whip up the yearly batch of egg nog - flavored marshmallows are such a fantastic idea!

Pille said...

Zarah Maria - sorry to hear that! We're thinking of trying the no-egg-white version:)

Dagmar - thank you for the wonderfully flavoursome syrup!

Brilynn - give it another go, please. We definitely had beginners' luck, hopefully we'll make nice marshmallows next time, too.

Bea - you're naughty! Surely a creative pastry chef like you can use up all the egg whites?!

Scott - there were zillion marshmallow ideas over at eGullet, so we'll be experimenting with various recipes again soon. Or maybe we should try the plain traditional marshmallows for a change? ;)

Jocelyn - they did both taste lovely (and K will soon try making macaroons, relying on your tips!)

Evelin - ja kuhu Sa need 8 munavalget panid? Ja kas pasteedisaia teedki vaid kooreta munavalgega? Ma olen seni vaid tavalisi upumune teinud, st nii munakollase kui ka -valgega..

Melissa - thank you - I'm very pleased with my KA:) I'm just about to make my piparkoogitainas (gingerbread dough) in my KA.
Mmmm. Eggnog..