Berry Meringue Roulade

I thought I'd try something a little new for this blog, which is a cooking post. I've done quite a few baking posts but I've not actually done any for cooking and today, for Christmas lunch, I made this super easy but quite impressive looking and really delicious berry meringue roulade. So I took some pictures as I made it and thought I'd show you all how, if any of you are on the hunt for a nice dessert to make for a dinner party coming up or something. The recipe isn't actually mine, it's from a recipe book by Sharon Glass called Absolutely Delicious, so I take no credit for anything except following the recipe, but it's one of my favourite desserts to make for big dinner parties and stuff and it feeds up to about 16, which is always a plus. 

Okay so the first thing you need to do is make the meringue, you will need:

4 eggs

1 and 1/4 cups castor sugar

1 teaspoon vinegar

2 teaspoons corn flour (maizena)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (350 F).

So start by separating the eggs and in a biggish bowl, start whisking the egg whites (electrically) until they are stiff. 

Gradually add the sugar over about 15-20 minutes, keeping the electric beater going the entire time. After this time, it should be really thick and glossy.

Now stir in the vinegar and corn flour. Okay, so for this next bit, I use a SilPat, which is like a silicone, non-stick baking sheet thing to go over your baking trays, which I highly recommend to use here (but if you don't have one, you could probably use wax paper I think?). So you want to spread the meringue mixture with a spatula over the SilPat on a baking tray to almost cover the entire area and make a large rectangle like this:

Let the meringue cook in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes, then turn it right down to 120 Celsius and cook further for 15 minutes more. After which, take it out and let it cool down completely. 

While the meringue cooks, you can make the filling. You will need the following:

200g ricotta cheese

100g plain cream cheese

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

1 punnet of fresh raspberries (you could actually switch in strawberries/blueberries/whatever you want here, but raspberries work best as they break up easily)

3 tablespoons icing sugar

To make this, you literally just mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl.

We are getting towards the part where we fill and then roll the meringue, and so there is a bit of awkward manoeuvring here. Basically, gently ease the meringue off the SilPat (it comes off easily) and flip it swiftly upside down on a counter/baking tray/second SilPat so that the peaks and top of the meringue is now face down. 

Now you can evenly spread the filling all over the inside of the meringue (which is now facing upwards). 

And now you can just go to town with adding any berries (or other fruit) you want. They only thing you need to remember to do is place them in vertical lines down the meringue, so that when it is cut, each piece gets some of the berries. I did 2 columns of raspberries, 1 of cherries (obviously pitted first, haha), 1 of strawberries (finely chopped) and also a row of granadilla pulp.

Now comes the last step, which I used to think would be super hard but actually it is so simple. You just need to roll up the meringue. You would expect it to be hard, but something in the recipe makes this meringue more flexible and so actually, it's quite easy to fold. Start on one end (width not length) and basically you just roll the meringue up into a big spiral. If it starts cracking or breaking, don't stress, just rework it until it is sturdy. 

And to end it off, move it to a pretty platter and cover it in some icing sugar, sifting it over the whole thing. I served it with a strawberry and granadilla sauce  (I just blended up strawberries, granadilla, lemon juice and a simple syrup of sugar water), and then served with a few more fresh berries.

Hope you enjoy and all had a lovely Christmas :D