Swiss Chocolate Meringue Cookies

I made these chocolate meringue over the weekend. I am not a big fan of meringue but these cookies look so pretty in the book. And I really want to pipe those s-shaped swirls. Yes, I know! I want to bake these because I want to pipe the pretty swirls. I am nuts!

The recipe is from Rose's Christmas Cookies. Technically it's supposed to be Swiss Mocha Meringue but I don't have espresso powder on hand.

It is a pretty easy recipe to put together. Whisk the egg whites until foamy, add cream of tartar, add a bit of sugar, and whisk until stiff peaks form. Then boil the sugar and water until it reaches the 240-250 degrees. To be safe, I always took it off the heat when it reaches 230 as I know it will continue cooking and I don't want to have caramel forming. Then add the sugar syrup in 3-4 additions to the meringue. Then add the melted unsweetened chocolate.

Per the recipe Rose recommends adding a few drops of red food coloring to give the cookies a richer chocolate color. I added a few drops too many and they turned out pink, :). I like the color though.

After the batter is piped onto the cookie sheets, it needs to dry out for 2 hours or until the meringue stays intact when touched with a finger.

I ended up letting it dry for 2 1/2 hours. And yet they crack! Rose said in her book that the meringue would crack when it's not dried up properly. I think mine is properly dried so I 'm not sure what happened but every single one of the crack! Oh well, they are still pretty and tasted very good. I love the chocolatey smell and flavor.

HCB: Lemon Canadian Crown

I have been looking forward to this cake for a while. I love lemon curd and ladyfingers and the combination sounded so yummy.

I made the ladyfingers on Sunday before going to the farmer's market. It came together pretty easily. I made 1/2 recipe and it took me about 1/2 hour to prep and mix everything. They finished baking in 8 minutes, giving me just enough time to wash the dishes.

HCB: Lemon Meringue Cake

Baking is so fascinating.

When you heat up the 3 egg yolks and 1/4 cup of sugar over simmering water until it's lukewarm (90 degrees), and then beat it with a mixer on high speed for 5 minutes, the mixture will quadrupled in size, fluffy, and ribbon-y. This mixture makes a cake called genoise.

When you skip the heating up portion and beat the same mixture on high speed for 5 minutes, the mixture will be thick, fluffy, and ribbony. This mixture makes a cake called biscuit.

Like I said, fascinating!!!

First part of the cake is making the lemon curd. Rose said you would only need 2/3 of the curd for this cake, but she likes to make the full recipe of the curd to have leftover for toast. I'm making 1/2 recipe of the cake, I was going back and forth about whether to do 1/3 or 1/2. In the end, I made 1/2 a recipe.

I won't go into the details of curd-making as I've done this several times. While the curd is cooling in the fridge, I started making the biscuit. The biscuit baked in 1/2 hour. While the biscuit is cooling, I made the lemon syrup.



While making the lemon syrup, I thought, hm.. I should've made the lemon syrup first so it will have time to cool while the cake is baking. What can I say, the organized part of me was taking a vacation :).

But wait, hang on a second - reading the recipe - it looks like that I wait until the cake cooled before applying the syrup! So the syrup doesn't need to be applied while it's warm. Phew! I'm okay then :)

After the cake cooled, I took the top "skin" off both cakes, applied the syrup, and sandwiched them together with all the curd. Yes, people, I use the full 1/2 recipe of the curd.



Finally, the italian meringue topping. I've made this before for mousseline buttercream. Though this time it's quite a relief to make a higher quantity for sugar syrup. Made it much easier to measure the temperature of the syrup.

The italian meringue came together without an issue as well. I piled it high on the cake and tried to make the swirls like the cake in the book. I baked it in the 500 degrees oven for 3 minutes, turning it every 1 minute. It was a little too brown, I think, but at least it didn't get burned and it was evenly brown LOL.



Tasting impression:
I am a little disappointed. The cake is too sweet for my taste. I did reduce quite a bit of the sugar in both the lemon curd and the sugar syrup. I didn't dare reducing the sugar in the cake and the meringue - for fear it will compromise their structure. Oh well, I have a solution to my problem: eat SMALLER slices!