Strawberries Meringue Cake

Finally we are approaching my favorite fruits season and to celebrate it, I have created my own dessert: a Strawberries Meringue Cake! If you try it, be advice that you will have a little more meringue and vanilla cream than needed to create the cake because I wasn’t sure about if I would like to cover the sides or not. You will need a blowtorch to burn the meringue and a circle cake pan between 20 and 25 cm size.

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 30 g flour T45 (+ 3 tablespoons)
• 165 g sugar (+ 3tablespoons)
• 40 cl milk
• 1 teaspoon liquid vanilla extract
• 5 g butter
• 6 strawberries

Recipe:

Prepare the pastry cream. Break 3 eggs and separate yolks and whites in 2 different mixing bowls. Add 90 g sugar with the egg yolks and whisk them. Add the flour and combine. Pour the milk and vanilla extract in a sauce pan and heat it at medium low temperature. Remove the sauce pan from the burner when it is lukewarm and pour it on the egg yolks, sugar and flour you just combined. Whisk again, then, pour everything back into the sauce pan and place again on the burner at medium-high temperature. Whisk it every 20 seconds during 5 minutes, until it begins to look like mayonnaise (it has to be creamy). Remove from the burner and let cool down.

Prepare the cake. Preheat the oven at 355°F (180°C). Beware, do not use the egg whites you still have from the first preparation, you will need them in the end for the meringue. Break the 3 remaining eggs in 2 other mixing bowls, still separating the egg yolks and egg whites. Using a pastry robot, beat the egg whites until stiff. Then, pour 3 tablespoons of sugar into the egg yolks and whisk with your pastry robot until it becomes clear. Using a rubber spatula, combine slowly the egg yolks and sugar to the whites (do not break the egg whites). Then, add 3 tablespoons of flour slowly and still combine. Grease your cake pan with the butter and pour the dough inside. Use your spatula to spread it and equalize, then, bake in the oven 10-12 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool down. After this time, remove the cake from the cake pan and cut it in 2 horizontally in the middle. Place the bottom on a plate and spread your pastry cream in the middle (just let 1 cm all around the borders).  Rince and cut your strawberries, then, place them on the pastry cream.

Prepare the meringue. Using a pastry robot, beat the 3 remaining egg whites until stiff. Then, add slowly the 75 g sugar remaining and still whisk 1-2 minutes to combine. Using 2 tablespoons, pour some meringue on the cake’s borders (where you did not pour some pastry cream, just pour a few meringue). Then, cover with the second cake piece and pour the meringue on top. Using a spoon, shave the borders to let the cake appear but flatten the meringue you placed between the 2 cakes. Then, spread the meringue you placed on top all over the cake doing waves. Finally, use a blowtorch to burn the meringue on top. Your cake is ready to be served but you can place it in the fridge for 5-10 minutes before if you prefer it very fresh.