Strawberry Meringue Heaven.

Can you believe that this is only my second time making Meringues?
I decided to try and make cute little desserts and I'm so please with them.

 The best part is they are so simple to make, but made everyone stop and comment on how clever I must be to produce such pretty little tea time treats. So I'm going to share the recipe with you so that you can feel like a clever so and so and make these for your loved ones.

You will need
For the meringue
1 packet of egg whites
4oz of sugar
8 tablespoons of water
a little pink food colouring paste

For the cream
150ml double cream
3 table spoons of monin strawberry syrup

Also
baking parchment
piping bag
large star nozzle
electric hand whisk

Method. 
Firstly make sure your bowl and beaters are spotlessly clean, wash in hot soapy water and dry and then with some lemon juice on kitchen paper wipe both the bowl and the beater to remove any grease (grease is not your friend)

1. Add the sachet of poweder egg whites to the bowl and 2 table spoons of water
2. Start the mixer and keep adding table spoons of water
3. When the mix looks really frothy and bubbly start adding your sugar a little at a time
4. Once all the sugar is added the mixture should look and feel very thick and glossy. then add your food colouring, carefully folding it in to the mix with a spoon. 
5. Carefully put the mix in a piping bag with a large star shaped nozzle attached and pipe the mix onto a tray lined with the baking parchment.  You can draw circles on the reverse of the paper first so all your meringues are equal sized, but as I was just holding the piping bag down and pulling up I eyeballed it
6. Pop in a pre-heated oven at 150 degrees. 
7. Keep checking the meringue and when a hard shell has formed turn the heat down to around 60 degrees and allow to cook for around 20mins.
8. After 20mins turn the oven off and allow the meringues to cool in the oven. 
9. Once the meringues have cooled, whip up some double cream with 3 table spoons of strawberry syrup until it is very thick, when it starts to clump together you've got it. 
10. Pipe the whipped cream onto one of the cooled meringues and then sandwich another meringue on top. And your done!
    
    When I made these strawberries were out of season and very very expensive in shops, but if your making these in strawberry season some fresh strawberries on top of the cream would be lovely.