Pomegranate Winter Chiffon Meringue Pie

I was wondering what the chiffon referred to in Rose's Pomegranate Winter Chiffon Meringue Pie but realised (as I was eating a piece) it's the mousse filling. Always such fancy names. 

To be honest, if I had seen this recipe without the benefit of a bake-through group, I doubt I would have considered making it. To my mind, a meringue pie crust is an odd concept, and filling it with mousse straight out eccentricity.

However, I would have been completely wrong. This is a really surprising (for me and those of my ilk) flavour and design winner. The meringue swirls at the rim of the pie (see The Baking Bible for a photo of a properly executed version) are a clever and pretty way to show off the pink mousse filling. The pomegranate flavoured filling is a really lovely, fresh flavour that goes well with the sweet meringue. Rose always uses lemon so effectively and the little teaspoon of lemon juice to the filling makes all the difference. 

Of course, that's the theory and then there's my execution. It was pretty disastrous despite the picture of apparent success below*. 

*Apologies for the photos which make it look like I live in a cave. I don't. I think it's time to invest in some lighting doodad.

This is my attempt to follow Roses's instructions (on her blog) about the best way to grease the pie dish to allow the meringue crust to release. It's not the picture of evenly sieved cornflour that I envisioned (you can't but admire the scratchings where I tried to redistribute the thick piles of cornflour). Even so, it might have worked if other things hadn't gone wrong...

A vision of loveliness... Even the blobby piping around the rim wasn't too bad (yes, that's right, I piped). I forgot about the heat and its effect on the meringue, so the definition from the star shape is not great.

The real issue I had with the meringue crust was in the baking. It may have been a bit marshmallowy when I took it out of the oven, when it should have been dry right the way through. This wouldn't have been a big problem if I hadn't had to leave it in the fridge an extra day before filling it with the mousse. Unfortunately after a day and a half in the fridge it kept leaking fluid into the bottom of the pie dish. I could see the tide rising through the glass pie dish. But having started I thought I'd keep going and make the mousse. What else could go wrong...?

The mousse, like the meringue, was a pretty straightforward concoction of flavouring (pomegranate juice), structure and volume (more meringuey egg whites beaten with sugar) and airiness (whipped cream). Not difficult. However. I ran out of sugar and had to use a mix of demerera and icing sugar. The juice and gelatin was cold but not set at all when I was ready to mix it with the whipped cream and the meringue. Hmmm. What to do? No time or energy to wait. I decided to mix the juice into the whipped cream. Hmmm, juicy blobs. I'll just have to whisk it with the hand mixer. Creamy juice, no air. Hmmm. I'll just fold the meringue and creamy juice together. Creamy juicy blobs. More whisking. Creamy, meringuey juice. Great. Perfect. I poured it into the dodgy meringue crust and carefully placed it into the fridge. It would have been merciful if I'd tripped and dropped it on the floor but the gods of clumsiness were not feeling kind.

All bakers know that sinking feeling where you've 'finished' but you know things are not as they should be. That was my experience, and it was confirmed when I cut the pie this morning to find a nice mousse layer on top of a marshmallow layer, under which ran a stream of pinky, gelatiny liquid. I know a few of our projects have looked like an accident scene but this one looked like a science experiment. The taste (of the first two layers), despite everything, was lovely and light and fresh. I didn't take it to work and I don't have any chickens or squirrels so this one might have to go to the big fridge in the sky.

If I was to compose this type of dessert myself, instead of a meringue crust, I might try two or three meringue discs pasted together with the mousse. It would avoid all the issues with the pie crust, although I'm sure 'me and my ilk' could find some other issues...

Next week the Alpha Bakers are making White Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Mousseline.

Frozen Lime Meringue Pie

I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself over this one because, to be honest, it looked like a pain in the backside to make. It really wasn't, especially when you make it over several nights (one day buy ingredients, next 2 days think 'I really should make that pie'...). Unfortunately, due to new job exhaustion, I still didn't finish my post in time for the round-up that our fearless Alpha Baker leader Marie writes every week (although I did get an honourable mention).

This Frozen Lime Meringue Pie (which sounds a bit like a cocktail) is another of Rose's unusual concoctions which turns out to be delicious. The pile of meringue topping makes it look like it'll be overly sweet, like lemon meringue pie, but, eaten cold, it's actually refreshing and creamy.

It was almost a frozen ... meringue pie since I wasn't organised enough to buy local limes at the weekend markets. Instead I had to pay an outrageous price of $1.70 PER lime at the supermarket. In fact I stood there at the fruit display considering my options for a while. In the end (options were no pie or expensive lime pie) I only bought 4 limes so I had to make do with minimal zest.

I had to ask my Alpha Baker friends about the wafer biscuits specified for the biscuit base. Apparently it refers to biscuits called Nilla wafers. Faithy suggested Marie biscuits as a substitute but when I spotted Scotch Fingers on the supermarket shelf I knew I had to have them. I spent quite a while calculating how many I could eat out of the packet. Quite a few as it turned out. The base also had toasted almonds in it which made it nutty and sweet and buttery. Is it wrong to want to just eat the base?

The filling is lime curd mixed with whipped cream. I must have been feeling usually zen because it seemed pretty easy. This is when the pie becomes out of the ordinary as you put it into the freezer to, um well, freeze. 

Then we're back on track to make, what turns out to be, a not particularly sweet meringue. I had the two egg whites left over from the curd and I didn't feel like breaking any more eggs, so my meringue 'pile' is half-size. 

The meringue is put back into the freezer after browning under the griller. Fitting it in the freezer was the most challenging part of that step. I would never have thought of putting barely cooked meringue in the freezer but it seems I'm lacking in imagination and daring.

I wasn't sure how a semi-fredo* pie would be but it turns out to be light, cloudy and creamy all at once. It was really a surprising and delightful texture. Well it was when I took the time to let my piece defrost. Otherwise straight from the freezer it was just a little bit frozen and icy :)

*spell-check kept changing it to freddo so now I'm thinking about chocolate Freddo Frog pie (which is not really a thing. Yet.).

Since this post is so late next week is actually this week and we're making Coconut Crisps.

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Meringue Birch Smudges

It must have been either hubris or stupidity that led me to attempt the Meringue Birch Twigs recipe from the Baking Bible. Especially when every time I open the freezer door I'm confronted with the miserable, chewy failure of the dattelkonfekt (date meringues). Especially when Rose herself warned the Alpha Bakers that these become bendy rather than twiggy in humidity. Especially since the experiences of my fellow Alpha Bakers confirmed this. Plus it was piping.

I'm not sure which of the excuses I prefer. Why don't we call it the triumph of hope over experience. Plus a degree of excitement over using up some of my frozen stash of egg whites.

The result was inevitable. Those meringue stripes you see below had to be scraped off the paper with a palette knife, each one becoming a compressed chocolate marshmallow smudge. They tasted delicious, although after eating quite a few smudges, I am feeling a little ill.

I wasn't so optimistic that I made the whole meringue recipe into twigs. That would have been foolish in the extreme. Most of the mix I made into normal meringues which were much crispier.

One of the reasons I made the effort with this recipe is because meringues are very easy to make, particularly in a stand mixer. I make them quite often when I need to take something to work because they're easy to make and transport, and a lot of people like them. I'm not sure why the meringues turn out crispy in the teardrop shape but soft in twig shape? Maybe something about surface area?

I did try baking the twigs for longer than specified in the recipe to try and dry them out. But my theory didn't work out.

The piping didn't go too badly except for a few uncontrolled wiggles. My worst problem with piping is usually ending up with the mixture oozing out of the top of the piping bag, all over my hands and up my arm. This time I tried not to put too much mixture in the bag, which is tricky because who wants to keep refilling the bag hallway through the job? Not this impatient baker, that's for sure.

Next week the Alpha Bakers are making ChocolaTea Cake. Sounds good.

Excuse me, is that your dattelkonfekt?

You can tell I was desperate to make a joke with the name of this week's Alpha Baker task. Actually it turned out to be more 'Oh dattelkonfekt!'...and that's not meant to be a joyous greeting. 

Being a reasonably competent meringue maker, I was feeling fairly confident about making these 'date confections', as the Germans so catchily named them (as a traditional German Christmas biscuit). And they were certainly a no fuss baking project. Unfortunately they deflated and went very soft not long after I took them out of the oven. I think maybe I should have baked them more like meringues (i.e. low heat for a longer time) to cope with the effects of the humidity. As it is I think I'll break them up and mix them with ice cream, perhaps with a bit of chocolate sauce.

I probably would have tried these a second time but they're not a cheap biscuit to make with a large amount of almonds and dates in the mix. They're essentially a meringue base so the only other ingredients are eggs, vanilla and sugar.

The almonds and dates are whizzed up in the food processor.

The eggs are beaten to soft peaks and then the sugar added gradually as for meringues. This is the other place I may have gone wrong. I turned my back for a minute and the eggs had gone way past soft peaks, right up to cumulonimbus. They looked all right when I added the sugar so I'm not sure it made a difference to the end product. I love glossy egg whites and sugar...mmmmmm.

The date and almond mixture is added to the meringue.

There was no way I was going to wrestle with a piping bag to get these on the baking tray. I'm not too bad at piping (not too good either) but I do tend to cover myself in the mixture. Particularly when it's a meringue mixture which, if you don't catch it early, can harden to cement-like consistency on skin. It's embarrassing to turn up at work with meringue lumps on your elbow and your ear. I usually just spoon meringues onto the tray 'countrystyle' and this is what I did with these.

They don't look too bad in the photo below.  I cooked them for about 30 minutes but they still went soft. Oh well.

 Next up is the charmingly named Polish Princess Cake.