Coffee meringue cake

This is a very old recipe. I think it comes from one of my mum's old recipe books but I cannot be sure. I have found it elsewhere on the web, but there are no references (surprise, surprise!).  I've made it a couple of times but it never turns out right. But it always tastes exceptional. This time it turned out perfect so I'm sharing my tips with you. This is a great cake if you have someone who is gluten intolerant, like my good friend whose birthday it was. 

Preparation time: 3 hours ; serves 8 (because it is very, very rich and sweet it could serve many more) 

Ingredients:

4	Egg whites (L or M)
8 oz/220 g	Caster sugar (if you don't have "caster" sugar see below)
4 oz/110 g	Granulated sugar
5 tbsp.	Water
4	Egg yolks
12 oz/330 g	Unsalted butter (Süßrahm if you are in Germany)
1 tsp.	Instant coffee dissolved in 2 tsp. hot water OR
150 g	Chocolate

Method:

There are some points during this recipe where you have to be really careful. The first place is when handling the eggs. Since the egg yolk does not get properly cooked you should use very fresh eggs and not give this cake to the young or the elderly. When separating the egg yolk from the white make sure everything is absolutely dry and free of oil else your whites won't become stiff when you beat them. There are many ways to separate your eggs and I won't go into that here because you can find multiple ways with a google search. 

The recipe calls for caster sugar. Its really important for making the meringue. It has to be very fine, but not as fine as icing sugar. Even German fine sugar is not fine enough. I got around this by putting my sugar in a small food processor and pulsing it a few times. Seems to have worked fine. Oh and if your sugar is not fine enough it will sink to the bottom of the meringue and you will have a sticky mess. (Still tastes good. A bit sticky on the teeth and nothing like a meringue.)

Once you have the two ingredients sorted out the next thing you need to do is prepare your baking sheets. You need 3 of them. Make sure you can fit all 3 in one go into your oven. If you can't then you can't really make this cake. You cannot let the egg whites sit while the first batch is cooking. The Whites will deflate and be useless. 

Take 3 sheets of parchment paper and draw 3 8" Circles on them. Tun the paper around to make sure that the pen marks are not in contact with the food. Make sure the paper lies flat on he baking tray. If it was in a roll you should roll it the "other way" to flatten it.  

Now put the oven on. I used a fan oven at 150°C (200°F). The oven has to be hot enough when you put the meringues in. This is not a good time to optimize!

Next Beat your egg whites in a metal bowl. Somehow eggs beat better in a metal bowl! You will know that your egg whites are stiff enough if you can hold the bowl upside down and the eggs don't fall out. This does not work so well if you use a glass bowl so be careful. Once the egg whites are stiff enough add 4 teaspoons of the caster sugar to the egg whites and beat until well combined. About 1 minute.

Now using a metal spoon fold in the rest of the sugar.

The next part took me a bit of reading to figure out how to do it best. Luckily macaroons are all the rage, so there were plenty of places to get some tips from. I packed my beaten egg whites into a piping bag without a tip (I don't own a tip large enough!), and then first piped along the circumference of the Circle drawn on the parchment paper. Then I slowly piped the interior.  At the end I took a spatula and smoothed the tops. Finally I put all 3 meringues  into the oven at the same time and baked them for I hour.

The meringues were done perfectly, which really was a pleasant surprise. Let them cool on a wire rack and start making the butter cream.

This butter cream is a bit involved but it is delicious. Do not be tempted to use a regular american style butter cream That would taste horrible here.


Put the sugar and water in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat, stirring until all the sugar is dissolved. Once the sugar is dissolved you can increase the temperature and let it boil. Don't continue stirring it, but give it a swish every now and then. While you are waiting for the sugar to be done you can beat the egg yolks so they are broken up and have a few bubbles. Now comes the eternal question. When is the sugar ready? If your syrup drips off your spoon like water it is not done enough. You need to be able to what they call "pull to thread". This means you can take a cooled drop of syrup and pull between finger and thumb to a fine thread. This description is actually pretty good one and you will see what is meant when you make the syrup! Make sure you don't caramelize the sugar.

Once the syrup is ready you have to pour it over the egg yolks beating all the time. It is really good if you have a second pair of hands here. Someone to beat & someone to slowly pour in the sugar syrup. Be very careful because you have to pour the syrup in when it is boiling. Don't pour it on the whisks because this will cause it to splatter everywhere and you will probably get burned. The syrup will cook the egg yolks at least a little bit. Keep beating until it is pale and fluffy. If making the cake with coffee flavour (which I highly recommend) add your flavouring to the egg mix. Now beat the butter in a separate bowl until it is soft and then slowly add the sugar mousse into the butter. Beat until smooth. If you want to make chocolate flavour melt your chocolate and add it to the butter before you beat it. The heat will help soften the butter in case you forgot to take it out of the fridge in time!

Now you can put the cake together and enjoy!