Strawberry Meringue Nests

With very few ingredients we can make an exceptional dessert. These meringues with roasted strawberry sauce is a recipe as beautiful as it is sweet and delicious. I think we can agree it might be the perfect recipe for your Valentine’s Day, or to say "I want to make you happy", simply by bringing one of these meringue nests to our loved ones.

Making the meringues is very easy, you only need a powerful mixer and to let the oven cook them at low temperature for a long time. I leave you some tips for making meringue in the recipe, I hope you find them useful.

About the strawberries, you can always serve it with fresh strawberries, but I strongly encourage you to roast them: their aroma intensifies and both in the meringues and when making the sauce I think you’ll notice a big difference if you cook them a little beforehand.

What do you say? Will you dare to surprise your Valentine with this recipe?

Ingredients

For the meringue:

• 150 g white sugar
• 3 egg whites
• 1 tbsp cornstarch (maizena type)
• 1 pinch of salt
• A few drops of lemon juice
• One teaspoon of vanilla extract (optional)

For the strawberry sauce and presentation

• 1 glass of Grand Marnier
• 2 tbsp cooking cream
• 300 gr strawberries

Preparation

How to make the meringue nests:

1. Preheat the oven to 110 °C.
2. With electric beaters or a KitchenAid with the whisk attachment, start beating the egg whites. When they begin to foam, gradually add the sugar. Once added, and to give them more body, add the drops of lemon, the pinch of salt and the tablespoon of cornstarch (*see notes).
3. On a baking sheet, place parchment paper (not necessary if you already have a nonstick tray), and using a couple of spoons or the De Buyer gun, arrange the meringue forming the meringue nests. Leave the center a bit flatter if you want to place strawberries on top later, or make them pyramid-shaped if you only want to drizzle them with strawberry sauce.
4. Place in the oven, and let them cook at low temperature, between 110 and 120 ºC, for two hours. When you see they are dry, turn off the oven and let them cool slowly, leaving them inside the oven but with the door open (this way the meringues won’t collapse).

How to make the strawberry sauce and assemble the nests:

1. The nests will be delicious if instead of fresh strawberries you use roasted strawberries. So, while the meringues bake, you can put an additional tray with some strawberries cut into quarters to roast in the oven, or you can cook them in the Dupla frying pan on the stove for a few minutes (you’ll see that thanks to the pan’s oven effect, the strawberries cook in a few minutes).
2. For the strawberry sauce, simply blend the strawberries (if they are the ones you roasted, even better, as their aroma will be more intense, and remember to save some for garnishing the meringue) with a blender until you get a strawberry purée. Add the cream and the Grand Marnier, and chill it for an hour in the refrigerator.
3. When serving the dessert, place a meringue nest with some roasted strawberries on top (let the roasted strawberries rest so as not to deflate the meringue), and pour a little strawberry sauce over it.

Notes

• *Cornstarch, as well as salt, help achieve greater consistency in the meringue, but you can omit them if you prefer.
• If you want the meringue to take on a vanilla flavor, add the vanilla extract while whipping the egg whites, but it is totally optional in the recipe. Without it, you get a meringue with the classic meringue flavor.
• When serving, you can place the strawberries but serve the sauce in a separate bowl, ensuring the meringue keeps its shape and your guests will surely love pouring that tempting sauce themselves.
• The meringues will also be delicious if you serve them with cherries. You can also serve them with roasted strawberries as mentioned in the recipe, but make the sauce with cherries. These flavors pair wonderfully together.