Cinnamon and Hazelnut Meringues

A number of cafes I've been to lately are serving these giant, fluffy coloured and flavoured meringues as cabinet food, so, the other day when I was browsing through a recently acquired cookbook, Ottolenghi The Cookbook,  I came upon the most interesting recipe for meringues and I decided to give it a go.

What I found intriguing about this recipe was that the egg whites are heated up.  Hmmmm... I had images of scrambled egg going through my mind.  Apparently this is called the Swiss Method which involves dissolving brown sugar and egg whites in a bowl over simmering water so they mix properly.  Well, it actually worked!

As I've mentioned previously, I have an abundance of cookbooks.  I can't help myself - the more pictures and the more unique the recipes the better!  Some books I haven't cooked a single recipe from, but I have gotten inspiration from the pictures or the way ingredients are used and adapted these into my own recipes.  Yotam Ottolenghi is definitely a favourite source of inspiration, his cookbooks are beautiful, and I can loose myself in the creativity of the recipes. (and I've actually tried a few of his recipes!) Ottolenghi is a UK based cook with middle eastern, mediterranean influences to his cooking, but all with a modern, light twist.  He started a cafe with Sami Tamimi in Notting Hill, with whom he co-authored this book and also wrote a more recent cookbook called Plenty which is equally mesmerising.  They have a website with blog and recipes as well, which for those who haven't come across him before, here's the link: http://www.ottolenghi.co.uk/

Give this recipe a try if you ever have some spare egg whites around - I will definitely try this again and I had a very happy husband when these came out of the oven!

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Cinnamon and hazelnut meringues.

• 200g egg whites (about 7)
• 260g Caster sugar
• 140g dark brown muscovado sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 30g unskinned hazelnuts, roughly chopped

(I only had 4 egg whites, but I weighed them on the kitchen scale and applied the ratio to the rest of the ingredients which worked well.)

1. Preheat oven to 110C.
2. Place the egg whites and both sugars in a heatproof bowl and put over lightly simmering water, making sure it doesn't actually touch the water. Stir occasionally until the sugars have dissolved into the whites (the recipe suggest 10min and 40C but this only took about 5 min for me. Obviously if it looks like a scramble is imminent, I would suggest taking this off the heat sooner rather than later!)
3. Pour into the bowl of an electric mixer (you really need a free standing one for this - handheld is going to take forever) and whip for about 8 minutes.  When ready, it should be firm and glossy and keep its shape when you lift a bit with a spoon.
4. Sprinkle the cinnamon over the meringue mix and fold in gently.
5. Line a baking tray (or 2) with baking paper and using 2 spoons, scoop a generous amount of the mixture (the size of a medium apple) with one and use the other to scrape this onto the tray (leave plenty of room between the meringues for them to expand in the oven) and sprinkle with chopped nuts. 
6. Place in the preheated oven and for anything from 1 1/4 - 2 hours, (I left them in for about 1 1/2 hours).  The meringues should be nice and dry underneath and still a little soft in the centre.
7. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.  Stored in a dry place, but not the fridge.

Adapted from Ottolenghi The Cookbook