Meringue battle, boys v machine

Hello again


Have you had a go at making the rocket rockets from our last page?

We had lots of eggs yesterday (we have two chickens called garlic and mustard) and we needed to make something that would use some up, that's eggs, not chickens!

Mum set us a challenge, she would help Joel (who is only just 3) to use a mixer to make the meringues whilst Mattie and Reuben would have to make theirs using a hand whisk. The idea was to see which was easiest and fastest and also which made the nicest meringues.



Here is how it went, firstly we'll tell you how to make them, then we'll show you our results.


Ingredients

4 egg whites
200g caster sugar - we only had normal sugar so mum whizzed it up in a food processor to make caster

Joel tried to help with the baking paper!

That's it, not many ingredients are there? You will also need a couple of baking sheets with baking paper on them and the oven turned on to gas2/150'c

Method

1)  Put your egg whites into a clean dry mixing bowl, and then whisk for ages, the mixture goes from see through, to foamy to white

2)  Keep mixing until when you lift out the whisk the white egg mix stands up in little mountains. Apparently it is stiff enough when you can lift the bowl over your head and none of the mixture drops out!

Mattie did not think this was a good idea!

3)   Then, one dessert spoon at a time, add and whisk in the sugar, the mixture will turn shiny

4)  Put spoon fulls of the mixture onto the baking sheet

5)  Put it into the oven and turn the temperature down to Gas1/140'c

6)  Cook for an hour, then turn off the oven and leave them to cool down in it.


If you wanted to use a mixer, the method is the same as above, but a lot quicker as you'll see...

So here is how the challenge went

Firstly, Joel got to use the mixer

And Mattie gets a whisk

Joel's is finished, so he adds his sugar and keeps the mixer mixing, meanwhile....

Mattie is still mixing and threatens to go on strike! But the thought of yummy meringues is more important than the thought his arm aches.

Next...

                                                  Joel's are put into the oven

Mattie asks Reuben to help because he is ...STILL MIXING!

Eventually, a full half an hour later than Joel, Reuben and Mattie managed to get their meringues finished and into the oven, here is the finished products

The ones on the left are Joel's and browner because the oven was hotter.

The boys say both tasted yummy, the hand mixed ones were crunchier and the mixer made the mix go further and made chewier ones. Both methods of making them are great, but Mattie and Reuben said that if you can find an adult to help you mix it by hand then it would be a lot easier.

How about trying to make some chick shaped ones for Easter, decorate them with melted chocolate.

Have fun trying this recipe and we would love to hear how you get on

From

Ethan, Reuben, Mattie, Jacob and Joel Bean