Chocolate filled meringue kisses must be most people's favourite dessert. I know they are mine.
Meringue throwback
I remember the meringue sandwiches from my childhood. Two quite enormous, bulbous meringue cookies, preternaturally smooth and shiny, glued together with whitish or brownish filling.
The colour was presumably different to signify either vanilla or chocolate cream filling but it wasn’t that important as either tasted pretty much the same: of margarine, mainly.
The meringues themselves were hard. I would bite into them cautiously, press my teeth in and nothing happened. I'd press harder and the meringue would explode in tough shards of solid sugar, injuring innocent bystanders. And my teeth hurt for a good half an hour afterwards.
I was a greedy child so I was tempted time and time again with the smoothness and the shine, having forgotten that it wasn’t actually a very nice dessert. Perhaps hoping they’d made them better this time round.
Unicorn meringues
They do make them better now and certainly more colourful. It’s all the rage of unicorn-coloured (though how does anyone know what colour unicorns are?), rainbow-lines arranged and duly Instagrammed dainty little things.
And the mini drops with pointy peaks, individual or sandwiched in couples are prettily called ‘kisses’. I’d say it's all a big improvement on the meringues of yesteryear.
The secret to perfect meringue
It's not much of a secret: you just have to beat the living daylights out of the egg whites and sugar, and then some. Seriously though, three things, all of them a bit of a chore.
First, warm up your sugar. It will dissolve easier while beaten into the whites.
Second, add it in by a spoonful. It's boring and tedious, I know.
Third: beat, whip, whisk patiently long after all the sugar has been added, until you can't feel any sugar granules when rubbing a drop of meringue between your fingers.
So making a perfect meringue it's not an easy or quick task. As much as I usually use a hand whisk to whip cream, I wouldn't volunteer to make meringue by hand.
Piping meringue kisses
'Rustic meringues' are not really a thing unless you count the enormous clouds of sugar peeking through the French patisseries windows. When making meringue nests it is perfectly fine to use a spoon, pile a mound on the baking sheet and sculpt a dip in the middle with said spoon. But neat and pretty kisses must be piped.
The trick is to set the piping bag (or an ordinary food bag) in a tall glass while you load the mix in. Then cut of the corner of the ordinary bag or attach appropriate nozzle, and pipe the meringues onto parchment from close above.
It’s not awfully easy to handle meringue as it has the tendency of going its own way and clinging to everything but the inside of the piping bag. When making this lot I ended up having to deep clean the kitchen and wash my hair.
But they turned out so good that from the first batch only about two thirds ended up filled. The rest disappeared during testing. There must have been some hungry unicorns around.
How to make white and dark ganache
That’s the easiest part: bring the double cream to the boil, in a saucepan or a microwave, and add chopped up chocolate. Leave it there for a minute, then whisk until amalgamated and perfectly smooth.
Ganache thickens as it stands so use it to fill the meringues when it’s not completely set, but no longer runny.
More meringue recipes
Date and walnut nougat meringues, the most exquisite sweets for all meringue, nougat, marshmallow and turrón lovers. Meringue never tasted better!
Mixed flavoured meringue kisses, mini meringues with lemon, raspberry, chocolate and pistachio flavour. The quickest meringue recipe, with burnt sugar.
Raspberry meringue roulade: the perfect dessert recipe by Ottolenghi, with raspberries and whipped mascarpone cream filling, decorated with rose petals and pistachios. The meringue base can be baked a day ahead.
More ganache filled dessert recipes
Authentic French almond macarons are very expensive, but you can make them at home. With dark chocolate ganache and lemon curd filling, they will be the most exquisite dessert you can possibly make.
The best chocolate cake with tart apricot jam filling and chocolate ganache layers. Rich and fudgy gateau, not very difficult to make. Your next birthday cake?
Andalusia, lemon and chocolate torte or entrement is the ultimate chocolate experience. A challenging, but possible to replicate at home Parisian confection from La Maison Du Chocolat.