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Raspberry Meringues

6K views 13 replies 6 participants last post by  flipflopgirl 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi chefs,

I;ve been trying to make raspberry meringues like the ones they sell at Ottolenghis in London - I'm sure it's a well kept secret but if anyone has any tips I'd be grateful. In particular I'm having trouble replicating the raspberry splatter on the outside - I'm sure it's some kind of raspberry sauce/coulis but I can't find a spray bottle that will take the thick liquid without cloogging up - do you think perhaps they use some kind of spray gun? if so can you recommend an inexpensive one?

Thanks,

Louise
 
#2 · (Edited)
I have both his cookbooks and looked and though there are recipes for meringues but not the raspberry ones. I don't remember any spattered-looking ones in the restaurant itself but one of the books has a photo of the desert area and there is one pile of meringues that looks spattered. I sort of remember a marbled-looking one. To marble it i would drizzle the raspberry reduction over the meringue and then scoop it up slightly swirling it but not mixing it. But to spatter it, i wonder of some sort of airbrush would work. Even spattering it by getting it on your fingers and then flicking them all at once at the meringue. I actually like the appearance of the swirled meringues better than the spattered ones, that look more mechanical and therefore evoke an idea of chemical coloring, even if it isn't, or perhaps a crime scene/img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif.

I think my kids did something with a sort of primitive airbrush technique in school when they were little, blowing paint through a tube - so maybe some sort of squirt bottle with a powerful blowing device, or a syringe maybe? The spatter would probably come spraying hard at a bit of a distance.
 
#4 ·
Hmm, by the looks of it, they were sprayed after baking, possibly rebaked a bit after?  But i don't find it as appealing as if you swirled it in a very light and small quantity of raspberry reduction - then it would appear marbled.  But i'm no expert. 

it looks, in any case, like a very light raspberry thing, that would not clog a spray. 
 
#7 ·
True,.prettycake, but if you look at the spatter patterns (i'm sounding like CSI now) you can see the liquid is actually quite thin - it drips down.  I think it's sprayed halfway through cooking. 

In the link you posted, the blackberry is swirled through the meringues, for which it can be very thick. 

Rose Levi Beranbaum (cake bible) has an amazing raspberry reduction that could be made sprayable. 
 
#8 ·
Syrup can also drip down.. what I was pointing out is that, it is not as thin as water..

Oh I love CSI.. that is my most favorite show.. too bad the Vegas one , some of the original people are leaving or have left, esp. Grissom and Warick../img/vbsmilies/smilies/frown.gif
 
#9 · (Edited)
Thanks guys - that's given me some good ideas to be going on with /img/vbsmilies/smilies/licklips.gif

Would this be the raspberry sauce recipe you are talking about Siduri?

24 ounces raspberries; frozen with no sugar added

-- If you use fresh raspberries, you will need 1 ½ pounds or 1 ½ quarts. In order to make them exude their juices, they must be frozen and thawed to break down the cell membranes.

2 tsp lemon juice

2/3 cups sugar

In a strainer suspended over a deep bowl thaw the raspberries completely. <Ruth's note - I usually nuke the raspberries in their bag for a minute or two to hasten the process.> Press the berries to force out all the juice. There should be 1 cup.

In a saucepan (or in a microwave on high power) boil the juice until reduced to ¼ cup. Pour it from the saucepan into a lightly oiled heatproof cup.

Puree the raspberries and sieve them with a food mill fitted with a fine disk. <Ruth's note - I simply use a firm spatula to scrape and press the raspberries through a fine-mesh strainer. The pulp passes through the sieve and the seeds stay in the strainer.> You should have 1 liquid cup puree. Stir in the raspberry syrup and lemon juice. To make a lightly sweetened sauce, measure again. There should be 1 1/3 liquid cups. If you have less, add less sugar. The correct amount of sugar is ½ the volume of the puree <that's Rose's guideline -- I find that you can even use less - R>. Stir until sugar dissolves.
 
#10 ·
It sounds right, though i remember it being a very long process, involving many trips into the microwave and out, and reducing it. 

Prettycake, yes, it will drip if it's thick, but not in the way that you see on the picture above - the drip is very transparent, it looks very watery.  also a thick drip makes a kind of straight line while a wet drip will waver around the bumps of the surface it's flowing down. 
 
#13 · (Edited)
Before the price of eggs skyrocketed meringue desserts (Pavlovas and the one and two bite "forgotten" cookies as well as Floating Islands) always gave great value for the cost of producing.

Bang for your buck ... esp if you could get an impressive volume built up before things started deflating and then crashed.

Went googling and this is the first page I opened http://www.marthastewart.com/1502275/meringue-cookie-recipes .

Lots of options there.

mimi
 
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