Meringue is one of the favourite deserts of my childhood. How can you not love this crispy breakable shell with sweet and sticky-toffee like centre? Who wouldn’t love holding it in one hand and catching crumbs with the other?

But to be honest in my childhood everything was a little simpler than now. We didn’t have chocolate, strawberry, lemon and all those yummy meringues, we only knew plain white ones, no flavours, no colours. And today choosing a meringue recipe to cook you’ll never be fascinated with a plain white one, right? Because of all that variety you have around.

So let us make it pistachio meringues. We’ll use the French method, the one that looks the simplest, yet has some tricks.

Recipe:
(makes 8, cooking time 30 minutes + 2-3 hours to chill)

4 egg whites at room temperature
250 g caster sugar
150 g pistachio nuts, roughly chopped
2 drops vanilla extract
½ tsp white wine vinegar
300 ml double cream

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200°С. Line the baking tray with parchment paper.

Whisk whites at medium high speed to triple their volume. In slow steady stream add sugar, continuing ti whisk. The mixture has to become smooth, glossy and really thick. Reduce the mixer speed to low, add vinegar and vanilla. Using a spatula fold in pistachio nuts, and stir well.

Spoon 16 large meringues onto the baking tray, spreading them a little to achieve flat caps. Leave about 2-3 cm between meringues as they are going to expand. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes. Then turn off the heat but do not open the door, leave for 2-3 hours or more to cool completely.

When the meringues are cool and set, whip the cream and use it to glue two meringues together. It will be also nice with chocolate or raspberry sauce.

Enjoy!