HOMEMADE MERINGUES

This must be the most popular egg-white recipe of all, whipped with fine sugar into tall, stiff shining peaks, then very lightly baked so that the surface is crisp and the centre is soft and chewy.

The tricky bit is whisking the egg whites, but the way the meringues are cooked is important, too. The oven should be pre-heated to 150°C, gas mark 2 but do make sure you are not going to be using it for anything else, since the meringues stay in the oven until it is completely cold, so that they partly baked and then slowly dry out. You will find the exact timings for each individual recipe below.

The Delia Online Cookery School: You can watch how to make Meringues and Pavlova in our video, just click th

e image to play.