Ottolenghi brought meringues back into the camp of cool a few years ago with his beautiful window displays showcasing these huge cloud like puffs in all their glory.

Inspired by Ottolenghi, this is one of my favourite recipes ever for meringues. You will get a huge amount of satisfaction from recreating such works of art, plus it’s fun to play around with different flavour combinations. Adults love them, kids love them and everyone will think you are a genius…a genius with either a strong wrist or an electric mixer…

What You’ll Need: 

• Cinnamon and Hazelnut meringues
• Makes 10 large meringues
• 7 egg whites
• 260g of caster sugar
• 140g dark brown muscavado sugar
• ½ teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 25g of un-skinned hazelnuts – chopped roughly

What To Do:

• Firstly heat your oven to 110C and make sure you have a large glass bowl that is sparkling clean (this isn’t me being OCD about your kitchen hygiene – it’s actually very important when making meringues).

• Boil a kettle and pour a few inches of boiling water into a saucepan. Into the glass bowl add your egg whites and both types of sugar.

• Place this bowl on top of the saucepan making sure that the water doesn’t hit the bottom of the glass bowl. You want the water to just gently simmer rather than have it on a rolling boil. Let this mixture stand for about 10 mins, give it a stir occasionally until the sugars have both dissolved into the egg whites. This is ready when the mixture is warm to touch.

• Pour this mixture into a clean glass bowl (to cool it down) and whisk using an electric whisk on a high speed for about 8 minutes (could take longer depending on your eggs).

• The mixture is ready when its firm and holds its shape  -it should also have a lovely glossy sheen to it. Sprinkle the ground cinnamon over the meringue mixture and carefully fold in with a rubber spatula – be careful not to knock all of the air out of it at this point.

• Put a sheet of baking paper onto a baking tray and with a teaspoon take a little dollop of the mixture and use it to “glue” down the corners of the sheet to the tray.

• Using two large serving spoons use one to scope up the mixture and the other one to scrape it off the first spoon and onto the tray. You want each dollop to have a little spike on the top if possible but this really isn’t 100% necessary. Make sure you leave lots of space in between each one as they will expand.

• Finish off with a sprinkling of chopped hazelnuts. Bake for about 1 ¼ hours (they might taken longer depending on the size of the spoon you have used).

• Your fluffy cloud like meringues are ready when they come off the baking sheet easily, are dry on the outside and still slightly soft on the inside….you might have to even sacrifice the first one as a little chefs taster to make sure it’s done properly. Well….someone has to be in charge of quality control don’t they?

These will keep in an air tight container for about 2 days – don’t let them get wet. For a pretty and summer time finish cover in raspberries.

For advice on how to make the perfect Victorian sponge click here.