Cocoa and Cinnamon Meringues

This recipe uses just a basic meringue mixture, but with cocoa and cinnamon folded through.  The cocoa and cinnamon combination adds depth to the flavour, and also helps to balance the overwhelming sweetness of the meringue.  The cocoa mixes surprisingly well with the meringue, to give you sort of a gooey chocolate rippled filling.  I think this is one of the nicest recipes I've made in ages.

The recipe is originally from The British Larder blog, but I have tweaked it a bit.  The recipe uses a different  method for meringues - you heat the egg whites and sugar over a low heat, then beat.  I'm sure you could use the traditional method (beating egg whites until stiff, then beating in the sugar), and get the same result.  I also learned that a good rule of thumb for meringues is to weigh the egg whites, then add double the weight in caster sugar (a 1:2 ratio). 

I added melted chocolate and toasted flaked almonds to the tops of my meringues - yum!

Ingredients

300g egg whites (for me this was six v large eggs, but do weigh them out)
600g caster sugar
Pinch of salt
20g cocoa powder
2 teaspoons powdered cinnamon
100g good quality chocolate
25g (approx) toasted flaked almonds

1. Preheat the oven to 110°C and line two large baking trays with non-stick baking paper.

2. Sift cocoa and cinnamon together.

3. Place the egg whites, salt and sugar in a large saucepan.  Cover your hands with disposable gloves.

4. Place the saucepan over a very low heat to gently heat the egg whites and to melt the sugar. Stick your hand into the egg and sugar mixture and stir it continuously.  Weird, but important; by using your hands you can control the heat, as you should not heat above 37°C (blood temperature).  Stir constantly to dissolve the sugar.

5. Once the temperature has reached 37°C, remove the saucepan from the heat and transfer the whites to a large bowl.  Beat the mix with electric beaters / mixer until the meringue holds its shape.  This takes a while - it took about 8 minutes with my electric handbeaters.

6. Gently sift the cocoa and cinnamon mix over the meringue.  Use two spoons to scoop a large spoonful of the mixture from the middle, scoop deep to get a ripple effect of cocoa and meringue. Do not be tempted to mix the cocoa in as you will spoil the rippled effect.

7. Drop the heaped spoonful of meringue onto the prepared baking trays.  Leave sufficient gaps as they swell when they cook.

8. Place trays in pre-heated oven.  Bake the meringues for two hours (the time may be less if your meringues are smaller).  The meringes are cooked when they are stiff on the outside but still slightly gooey in the centre.  Allow to cool for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.

9. Melt chocolate (in the microwave over over a pan of simmering water).  Allow to cool slightly.  Spread melted chocolate on tops of meringues, sprinkle with toasted almonds.  Leave to set at room temperature.