Delia Smith meringues are just 2 large egg whites whisked with 110g of caster sugar, and her meringue recipe makes 8 nests. You put them in at 150°C, lower the heat to 140°C at once and bake them for 30 minutes. They need about 50 minutes of work and baking, plus 4 hours or overnight to dry out in the cooling oven.
These are the meringues from her 1998 book How to Cook Book One, where she calls meringue the most popular egg-white recipe of all. Her website uses the same method today, and her online Cookery School shows it in lesson 6, next to custard and pavlova.
Her secret is the oven, not an extra ingredient. The meringues go into a hot oven, the heat drops at once, and the oven then dries them slowly as it cools. You end up with a crisp surface and a soft, chewy centre.
They keep well in a tin or a polythene box, and they freeze extremely well too. Egg whites whisked with sugar also top her lemon meringue pie and roll up into her chocolate hazelnut roulade.
Delia Smith Meringue Nests
Course: DessertCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy8
servings15
minutes35
minutes60
kcalCrisp outside and marshmallowy inside, these nests need only two ingredients and a slow oven.
Ingredients
- For the meringues:
2 large egg whites
110g white caster sugar
Directions
- Oven: Heat the oven to 150°C, fan 130°C, gas mark 2. Line a 40 x 30cm baking sheet with baking parchment.
- Separate: Separate the eggs one at a time, dropping each white into a cup first. Tip it into a large, clean, grease-free bowl once you know it has no yolk in it.
- Whisk: Using an electric hand whisk on low speed, whisk the whites for about 2 minutes until foamy. Switch to medium for 1 minute, then to high until stiff peaks form.
- Sugar: Keep the whisk on high and add the sugar about a dessertspoon at a time, until the mixture is stiff and glossy.
- Shape: Spoon 8 heaped dessertspoons onto the sheet, spaced evenly. Hollow out each centre with the back of the spoon or a small palette knife. Random, rocky shapes are fine.
- Bake: Put them on the centre shelf and turn the oven straight down to 140°C, fan 120°C, gas mark 1. Bake for 30 minutes.
- Dry: Turn the oven off and leave the meringues inside, with the door shut, until the oven has gone completely cold.
Notes
- The meringues stay in the oven for hours, so choose a day when you do not need it for anything else.
- Separating each egg over a cup means a broken yolk spoils only one white.
FAQs
Do Delia Smith meringues need cornflour or vinegar?
Delia Smith meringues need only egg whites and caster sugar, so you can leave out cornflour, vinegar and cream of tartar. The crisp shell and chewy middle come from her slow oven instead.
How much sugar do I need for more egg whites?
Delia Smith meringues always take 50g of caster sugar for each egg white, so 2 whites need 110g and 3 whites need 175g. The sums look odd because she first wrote the rule as 2oz per large white, and her conversion chart rounds 6oz to 175g.
Her website adds that 150g or 175g of sugar both work for 3 whites. Her apricot hazelnut meringue recipe uses exactly that, 3 whites and 175g, with 75g of ground hazelnuts folded in.
How do I know the egg whites are whisked enough?
The whites for these meringues are ready when they form a stiff peak that stays on the end of the whisk without falling off. They should look cloudy and foamy at that stage, her website says.
Stop as soon as you get there. Over-whisked whites stretch until the bubbles burst, and the mixture collapses back into liquid.
Can I make meringue shells instead of nests?
Yes, you can make small meringue shells, because the 1992 edition of her Complete Cookery Course spoons her meringue pavlova mixture into dessertspoonfuls. Shape each one with two spoons, bake them for 1 hour at 140°C, then let them cool in the switched-off oven.
Once they are cold, sandwich them together in pairs with whipped cream.
Why are my meringues sticky?
Sticky meringues usually have not dried out for long enough, so leave them in the closed oven until it is completely cold. That takes about 4 hours, or you can leave them overnight.
She says her method will never let you down, provided your oven temperature is correct.
How do I turn meringue nests into mini pavlovas?
To turn these meringue nests into mini pavlovas, fill them with the mascarpone cream and fruit from her Meringues with Summer Fruit. Whisk 250g mascarpone with 200ml fromage frais (8 per cent fat), 1 rounded dessertspoon of caster sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Spoon the cream into the 8 nests and pile 450g of strawberries or raspberries on top. Her favourite is a mix of redcurrants, raspberries and strawberries, dusted with icing sugar.
