An Eton Mess...

Rhubarb Eton Mess no less!
An Eton Mess is an English dessert essentially made up of crushed meringue, fruit and whipped cream.
This variation consisted of poached rhubarb, meringue with ground pepperberries, fresh strawberries, and white chocolate ganache - the idea was in Delicious magazine.

The rhubarb, I should add, came to me from my sister whose neighbour grew the beautiful crop. You just have to do something special with such lovely home grown produce.

Poached rhubarb: 

50ml grenadine

10 juniper berries

finely grated zest and juice of 1 orange and 1 lemon

1/2 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup white wine

bunch rhubarb, cut into 4cm pieces

Place all ingredients, except rhubarb into saucepan with 1 cup water and bring to boil. Pour over rhubarb, place into casserole dish and roast for 30 mins at 150°C. 

(This was a fantastic way to prepare the rhubarb - yummy flavour!).

Meringue

3 egg whites

175g caster sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp ground pepperberries

Whisk egg whites to soft peak stage, slowly add the sugar, then lemon juice and continue beating to stiff peaks. Spread an even layer on a baking paper lined tray and sprinkle over the ground pepperberries.  Bake for 1 hour at 120°C. Break into pieces.

(The pepperberry adds an interesting spiciness/peppery heat to the sweet meringue).

Ganache

250g white chocolate

250 ml cream

Bring cream to boiling point and pour over chocolate. Set aside for 5 minutes, then stir until smooth. Let cool.

(I didn't let it cool the first time I put together the dessert and the whole thing became overly sweet as the ganache poured over and through everything. It was so much better cold and then there were just some little scoops that you spooned into throughout. Mm mmm).

Assembling

Slice strawberries, whip cream and place in serving glasses along with rhubarb, meringue, ganache and some of the syrup from the poached rhubarb. Enjoy!

 

The leftovers

I mixed some condensed milk into the whipped cream, then folded through all the left over components: ganache, rhubarb, broken meringue and popped it into a glad wrap lined loaf tin. The result? A rhubarb and meringue ice-cream of sorts! Slices served on a pool of raspberry sauce. Delicious!!!