B”H
Good morning everyone! If you like meringue you’ll love today’s recipe and if you haven’t discovered meringue… you’ll thank me later! When I was preparing for Menachem’s upshernish thinking of non-chametz things I could bake that would also work with my black and white theme, I went back to a childhood staple – meringues (merengues or suspiros). My kids fell in love with them and they have become a favorite around here. So when I found this beautiful garden cake made with a meringue base I had to give it a try. It’s perfect for Shavuot! So here you go: Meringue Cake for Shavuot!
I think it’s the perfect cake for Shavuot, reminiscing again of the beautiful mountain covered in flowers (Har Sinai). It’s also so incredibly light, almost like eating a piece of heaven. Stretch your imaginations here, but to me this cake is a culinary experience that somewhat mimics the closeness with the divine that our souls experienced at the giving of the Torah (Shavuot).
My girls fell in love with the cake. They thought it totally looked like the beautiful Har Sinai. In fact, I had to take the pictures quickly before the would come back with Ten Commandments’ tablets they ran off to make out of cardboard and markers. By the time they showed up with the “Ten Commandments” I was ready to feed them cake! Ok for Shavuot I will let them stick the Tablets, no problem.
You can really decorate it with any berries you would like. I used raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. If your family eats blackberries, you can add those as well (some families don’t eat them for kashrut reasons, as blackberries might be hard to check for bugs). I used fresh mint leaves, and I I heard from a friend that one can sometimes find lavender leaves and add them. And don’t forget to fill the inside with berries as well. I used pareve whipped cream for mine, but you easily make it dairy for your Shavuot dairy meal.
Here’s the recipe. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
6 egg whites (make sure they are at room temperature)
1 1/4 cups of sugar
12 oz of whipped cream
1/4 tsp vanilla
Assorted berries
Mint leaves
Procedure:
Preheat your oven to 200 F.
Beat the egg whites until soft peaks start to appear, then start adding the sugar gradually, while turning the beater to a higher setting, until the whites become stiff and glossy. It should take around 12 minutes.
On two parchment lined trays make two circles of the measurement of your platter. (I used a dish slightly smaller than my platter and drew the circumference into the parchment paper). Fill the circles with your egg whites making two “cakes”. Bake for one hour and twenty minutes. Turn off oven and leave inside to cool completely.
Make your filling, by whipping your cream and adding vanilla if you’d like (alternatively, you could add vanilla to the egg whites when beating them for a nice touch).
When the merengues are totally cool, you can assemble your cake. Lay cake number one and top it with whipped cream and berries. Then lay cake number two on top and now decorate the entire thing with whipped cream, berries and mint leaves. (It’s best to assemble the cake close to serving time)
The original recipe is from here.
All pictures by Yael for JewishLatinPrincess
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