Thursday 27 March 2008

Chocolate moussingues aka what to do with gone-wrong-meringue-mixture

What do you do when your meringue goes wrong? You got distracted and whisked the egg whites as if you were making royal icing instead of meringue. Now you've put the sugar in and it's a nice shiny white sloppy consistency. Bother.

Well, providing you still have eggs left, fear not.

1. Put the bowl of gone-wrong-meringue aside and cover. Wash your beaters.
2. Start your meringue again with fresh egg-whites and sugar, reserving the yolks for later, and beat the egg-whites properly this time.
3. When you have time e.g. the following morning, pre-heat the oven to gas 3 and return to the gone-wrong mixture and the egg-yolks left over from the new meringue. Find that scrap of cooking chocolate lurking in the cupboard because there isn't enough of it for any recipe, or mix equal weights of cocoa powder and melted butter. I think I used about 2oz chocolate for 2 egg yolk/white. Melt it in the microwave.
4. Stir the egg-yolks into the chocolate a bit at a time and beat with a fork or electric whisk until smooth.
5. Transfer the chocolate mixture into the ex-meringue mixture and mix well with electric whisk. You will get small air bubbles but it will still be runny.
6. Decant into 4 or so ramekins, filling each one about 1/2 to 2/3 full. Stand in a baking tray and place in centre of oven. Cook for 25 mins or so until set. Serve immediately for best puffed-up souffle-style effect but they taste good cold too.

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