Praline Pecan Meringue Ice Cream Sandwiches Rose's Alpha Bakers

Praline Pecan Meringue Ice Cream Sandwich 'The Baking Bible'

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A quick, easy and gluten free go to ice cream sandwich biscuit (cookie) today. 

I've made brown sugar meringues and meringue ice cream sandwiches before, but it's the combo of brown muscovado sugar and toasted pecans in these cookies that instantly turns a scoop of ice cream into a portable ice cream sundae.

The recipe called for light muscovado sugar or dark brown sugar, my local Woolies had light and dark muscovado on special this week... and I thought I got one of each, but nah I grabbed two dark muscovado's by mistake so dark it is.  

If you haven't used muscovado before, it has a wonderful aroma and unique treacle-y flavour that is unmatched in the world of sugars. 

Start by toasting your pecans, then leave half whole and chop the rest into small pieces.

Muscovado sugar and egg whites are whipped until thick and light, the cooled pecans are folded in. I divided the mixture as this stage and added choc chips to one half... just because, well "chocolate" hello!  

Scoops are put on your lined baking tray and gently shaped to discs with a spatula. 

Baked, cooled and filled with your favourite ice cream flavour, home made or store bought. Rose includes a recipe for 'Rose Blend Ganache Piping Glaze' for topping the ice cream sandwiches, a lovely white/dark ganache mixture that I didn't pipe I more did the "strewn" thing... delicious either way.  

Think of pairing the biscuits with salted caramel ice cream, bourbon banana for a banana foster ice cream sandwich, chocolate (of course), burnt caramel fig ice cream, coffee (not the sweet Vietnamese coffee type, but rather an Italian espresso type to counter cookie sweetness) or just a scoop of classic vanilla. 

The meringue mix can also be baked as cookies, just bake in scooped shape for chubby, light and crisp with squidgy centres.  

Would I bake again? A definite yes!! Loved these cookies, with only three ingredients (or four if you add chocolate) we all need a quick pantry staple cookie. Fabulous they are gluten free.

Would I change anything? Umm, if I added chocolate I would use a darker higher cocoa ratio variety to play against the sweetness... otherwise no.  

How it works... now I've joined the fabulous existing alpha bakers, once a week I will post about what I have baked from Rose Levy Beranbaum's 'The Baking Bible'. This won't include the recipe due to copyright and publisher restrictions however, I will be posting how it went and photos of making/baking the gorgeous baked goods.

Happy Baking :)

The Baking Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum is available from Amazon and where all good books are sold. 

And for something totally different...  Squid ink grisini recipe.  

Freeze dried fruit meringue

blackberry bash eton mess cupcake with freeze dried blackberry meringue and fresh tarragon 

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Ok, I confess. I did tell him they were lollies, my step son that is... when he was little and we were going to the city for the day I'd buy him a packet of freeze dried fruit for a treat.

Freeze dried fruit is an awesome patisserie ingredient, with the intense flavour and natural colour of fresh real fruit and slight "fizz/sherbet" mouth feel. 

Freeze dried fruit powders come in a plethora of fruit, veg and herbs, whole, pieces and powder. 

You can use freeze dried fruit powders in all of your favourite frostings from buttercreams to seven minute, just add a few teaspoons of powder (or to taste) in the last minute on mixing.  

freeze dried black berry whipped cream

Ganache and whipped cream you betcha :) The more creamy, the more fat your mixture contains the more powder you will have to use. The resulting flavours aren't as intense as "meringue" but still add a flavour boost. 

Macaron shells and meringues come to life with a fresh flavour burst of chosen fruit. Think pavlovas, meringue based roulades and souffles too. 

Cookies, biscuits, cake batters, tart and pie crusts can all be flavoured/coloured with freeze dried fruit powder. I made the best ever passionfruit shortbread last Christmas thanks the to addition of freeze dried passionfruit powder. 

Wake up your breakfast by adding freeze dried fruit powders or pieces to your homemade granola, stir through yoghurt, add to your waffle batter or add a spoonful to your smoothie. 

One of my favourite uses for freeze dried fruit powder is just flavouring sugar. Here castor sugar/super fine is flavoured with freeze dried berry powder and used for donut coating sugar. Flavoured sugar; a few teaspoons of freeze dried fruit powder per cup of sugar, mix and then store in an airtight jar. Use as required on you tea cakes, pancakes, donuts and the like. 

Blackberry meringue

You can use any meringue recipe italian, french or swiss... just add powder in last, about a tablespoon for 3-4 egg whites.

Pre heat oven to 90cel  (194F) 

line baking tray with non stick paper

4 egg whites are room temperature

220g (7.75oz) caster sugar (superfine)

I pinch of cream of tartar

10 to 15 grams (0.35 to 0.50oz) of freeze dried blackberry powder

Whisk egg whites with an electric mixer until soft peaks form, gradually add sugar until combined, add blackberry powder and continue to whisk until thick and glossy.

Spread onto prepared tray and bake for one and a half to two hours. Turn oven off and leave in oven until cool about another 2 hours.  

Bash or break pieces off to stir through chantilly (vanilla) whipped cream with fresh berries for you eton mess. Either serve in small glasses, a giant bowl or fill cored cupcakes with the mixture. 

I used fresh tarragon to add, ummm well "freshness" and the herbal aniseed flavours compliments the blackberries beautifully. 

Haven't used freeze fruit before? Then I would suggest you start with raspberries, whole, bits or powder or passionfruit powder. Unless you are growing your own, both these give you the most bang for you buck and they are popular too!  

A note on colours; blackberry, blueberry and black currant all give a "purple colour range", for pink or red use raspberry, sometimes the strawberry powder whilst tasting of fresh strawberries gives you an orange colour hue.

Pros:   intense concentrated real fruit flavour, intense natural colour, slight fizz, a little goes a long way, your not adding excess liquid to you mixes, enjoy fruit out of season. Whole freeze dried fruits can be ground to powder or broken into small bits. 

Cons:  cost, it's not inexpensive, powders will clump, pieces soften if exposed to moisture... silica sachets recommended if you buy a larger quantity than a sachet. 

Where to get it is going to depend on where you are located: places to look specialty supermarkets and food stores, health food stores, patisserie supplies store. Seek out local growers for supreme quality. 

New Zealand: Fresh As this brand is available to ship to Australia and also available from gourmet grocer online  

Australia: The Essential Ingredient Sydney, Melbourne and online    

Tastebom has a nice range, as does Melbourne Food Depot 

US:  Amazon  

Happy Baking :)  

You might also be interested in red plum fruit caviar 

or an easy white chocolate plastique

Cherry Eton Mess

cherry eton mess

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Tis the time for lots of macaron's that haven't quite "footed" and meringues that didn't quite, ummm "meringue?". What to do? Why make Eton Mess for dessert of course.

Eton mess is a traditional English dessert consisting of a mixture of strawberries, pieces of meringue and cream, which is traditionally served at Eton College's annual cricket game against the students of Harrow School. wikipedia

Oh my, I couldn't resist the boxes brimming with sweet dark cherries that fill the Australian fruit shops in December, plus I had macarons "oddments" and end of batch meringes from Christmas gift baking. So lets make a delightful mess... albeit a bit "girlie" today, I'm afraid I went too far with the 100's and 1000's (nonpareils).

Cherry Eton Mess 

(by all means go traditional and use strawberries instead if preferred) 

Ingredients 

*2 cups of chilled whipping cream

2 tablespoons of sugar

1 vanilla pod scraped of seeds (use vanilla extract to taste if you don't have pods)

700 grams (25oz) of fresh cherries 

leftover macaron shells, meringue pieces or buy a packet of meringue shells

Method

Pit most of the cherries, leaving a few whole ones for decoration. Place the pitted cherries and one tablespoon of the sugar in a small bowl and give the mixture a gentle squeeze to release a little of cherry juice, stir to combine. Refrigerate until serving time.

Whip the cream, with the remaining one tablespoon of sugar and seeds from the vanilla pod until soft peaks form. Refrigerate until serving time.

Assembly

When you're ready to serve, in no particular order, spoon cream, cherries, broken pieces of meringues and macaron's into serving glasses. 

Top with whole cherries dipped in melted white chocolate if desired. 

*variations; try adding plain yoghurt or creme fraiche to the whipping cream. I often use 1 1/2 cream to half yoghurt, it will lighten the mouth feel and is more refreshing in summer. 

Macerate the cherries or strawberries with sugar and a juice or alcohol of choice before assembling, brandy, grand marnier or a favourite dessert wine are good choices.

Have fun and happy baking :)

Want to make your own meringues? Here is a recipe for 4 individual pavlova shells that you can break up for your Eton Mess... omit or change colour as desired. 

More desserts in glasses? How about Peach Verrines in Minutes

More cherries? A quick cherry cupcake decoration

                      Snow Cherries

Weird Science

If the names: Ferran Adrià, Heston Blumenthal, Wylie Dufresne roll off your tongue you already know what a syringe, and three white powders are going to produce. 

If not, welcome to world of culinary Molecular gastronomy. Since the 1990's some of worlds greatest chefs have passionately embraced the use of science, technology and cutting edge equipment to produce food in new surprising flavours and structure.

Hot coffee and iced coffee in the same cup yet both elements stay separate, inside out boiled egg, a sculpture of fruit foam tasting more like fruit than fruit itself but disappearing on your tongue, it's all possible with molecular gastronomy. 

Curious? Then why not start out with "fruit caviar or pearls", gel on the outside, liquid on the inside.

Liquid, usually fruit, but it can be alcohol to tomato juice go through a spherification process to produce small balls or "caviar" to be used desserts, savoury dishes and cocktails. 

For my first attempt I made red plum fruit caviar.

Fruit Caviar technique

500ml of chilled Red Plum juice (or 500ml of any liquid)

1.5g Sodium Alginate

1g Sodium Citrate

500ml chilled water

3g Calcium chloride

Combine the first three ingredients in a jug, whisk together. In a separate bowl stir the calcium chloride into the water until dissolved. 

Using a syringe or an eyedropper, drip drops of the fruit mixture into the calcium chloride bath. Allow to set for up to 5 minutes before rinsing in cold water. They are now ready to use. I paired the plum caviar with mini matcha & black sesame pavlovas but they could just as easily topped tarts or cupcakes. 

Starter spherification kit from The Red Spoon Company