Just like eating a pink fluffy cloud!

One of the many lovely things about summer is being able to have tea in the garden.

Light as a summer breeze, these gorgeous little pink mini-meringues are completely simple to make and perfect with strawberries and cream - and a cup of tea, obviously.

The amount of pink colouring seems rather startling: and it does look a bit violent when you first put it in, but the colour soon fades in the oven.

Tips

Don’t forget: only bake meringues at a low temperature: you just can’t rush a meringue. Also, meringues hate grease so make sure your equipment is spotless and grease free. Make sure too, everything is properly dried before you start.

Crisp & Dry or Squidgy & Chewy

If you want your meringues to be explosively crisp and dry throughout: flatten and spread out the blobs of meringue more on the baking tray and make sure they dry out thoroughly in the turned-off oven after baking.

If you prefer them to have that dangerously more-ish delectable squidgy centre then mound them up so they are higher and cover a smaller area.

And Another Thing

It’s worth knowing, if you find yourself without weighing scales, the proportions are 2 medium-large egg whites to 6 level ordinary kitchen tablespoons of caster sugar.

Makes approximately 24 ‘teaspoon’ meringues

• 2 very fresh egg whites
• 100g white caster sugar
• 1½ tablespoons pink food colouring – or to preference

You will need an electric hand whisk or manual rotary whisk and 2 baking sheets, lined with baking parchment

Preheat oven to 100C (fan oven) or equivalent

Whisk the egg white into ‘soft peaks’- that is the peaks should still fall over slightly and not be completely rigid.

Add a level tablespoonful of sugar, whisk it in and continue whisking in a spoonful at a time until all the sugar is incorporated.

Don’t over whisk and don’t add more than a level tablespoon each time.

Arrange teaspoon-size blobs of meringue on the prepared trays – space them out, not because they will spread, they won’t, but you need to give each meringue a bit of room for the hot air to circulate.

Bake for an hour or until you can peel them off the paper easily.

Leave them in the oven with the oven door slightly open until the oven has gone cold so they can finish drying out.

Once they are completely cold they will just lift off the tray. Store in a completely dry, airtight container for up to 6 weeks.

Eat as they are, or with strawberries and softly whipped cream. Try sandwiching two mini-meringues together with cream. If you can find any crystallised rose petals they would be fantastic sprinkled over the cream. I’ve not been able to find any for ages – nor the crystallised violets - but pink sugar looks pretty too. Serve with strawberries on the side.