Meringata

This Meringata is a perfect way to end a winter dinner. I love to serve it after a simple meal, it always suprises my guests. Essential part of this recipe is the crema pasticcera by Iginio Massari. I’ve tried many different recipes of this kind of custard, so common in Italian pastry, but every time I was disappointed: just nothing special, not interesting enough to became the protagonist of a dessert. This cream is completely different, has a wonderful velvet texture and deep flavour.

Turn it in a chantilly, crumble some meringues on the top and here you are. Dress with some raspberries sauce, that gives a bit of tartness, and will be divine.

I suggest you to prepare in advance the meringues, the pastry cream and the raspberries sauce. Two hours before serving you can easily prepare the chantilly, and assemble the dessert.

Enjoy :)

Meringata

Six persons

Meringue

• 70g egg whites (from two large eggs)
• 140g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 200º C. Line a shallow baking tin with baking parchment. Whisk the eggs with an electric mixer on a medium-high speed for few seconds, until the eggs start to became white, then add gradually the sugar in two or tree times. Keep going to whisk for about five minutes, until the meringue is perfectly whipped, frothy and glossy. Take a spoon and form small meringues, put them into the line tin, with a little room among them. Place in the oven and immediately lower the temperature to 100º. Cook for one hour, then raise the temperature to 130º C and cook for 45 minutes more. Remove from the oven and set aside until completely cool.

Every oven works in a different way, so temperatures and time cooking needs to be adapted to your oven.

Crema pasticcera by Iginio Massari

• 7 yolks (about 125gr)
• 500ml whole milk
• 130gr caster sugar
• 40gr corn starch (or rice starch)
• lemon peel
• Fresh vanilla (eventually)

Put a large bowl in the freezer. Bring to boil milk with lemon peel in a small saucepan (be careful to don’t take the white part, but only the yellow peel). In the meantime gently whisk the yolks with the sugar and the corn starch (if you use rise starch you’ll get a cream even softer). Keep going to whisk until the milk is hot, then take out the lemon peel, and add the milk carefully in two or tree times. Once combine, pour the cream in the pan and cook slowly until soft, smooth and bit thick. Take out the bowl from the freezer and transfer the custard immediately in it, constantly whisking to lower the temperature (we don’t want to overcook the eggs). Cover with cling film and set aside until completely cool.

Raspberries sauce

• 125gr raspberries
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar
• half teaspoon corn starch

Put the raspberries and the sugar in a small pan, cook few minutes until are melted. Filter the sauce with a stainer in order to save only the juice from the raspberries and not the seeds. Add the corn starch and cook it again until little thick (needs not more than a couple of minutes). Eventually you can only cook for few seconds in the microwaves. Set aside until completely cool.

Crema chantilly

• Crema pasticcera already chilled
• 200ml white cream
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar

Whisk the white cream with a tablespoon of caster sugar until is soft and stable. Add carefully the whipped cream to the pastry cream, spoon by spoon, combing together with a spatula, mixing from the bottom up, in order to incorporate some air. Set aside.

To assemble. Break one or two meringues in the bottom of each glass, then garnish with the chantilly cream. Topping with the raspberries sauce, garnish with last spoon of chantilly. Finish with some meringues crumbs on top.

Set aside in the fridge two hours before serving.