Can I Make My Own Meringues To Use In The The Passionfruit Ice-Cream Cake?

Our answer

Nigella's Passionfruit Ice-Cream Cake With Coconut-Caramel sauce (from AT MY TABLE) is easy to make as the ice-cream cake is a combination of whipped cream, passionfruit pulp, orange liqueur and crushed meringues. The combination of the sugar in the crushed meringues and the liqueur means that the ice-cream cake has a smooth texture that is not icy.

You neeed dry meringues for this recipe as they crush easily, rather than a pavlova meringue that is more marshmallowy and chewy in the centre. It is easiest to buy these, as store-bought meringues or meringue cookies are usually quite dry and slightly powdery and are perfect for crushing into crumbs. The packages of meringue nests usually sold in UK stores contains 8 nests with a total weight of 100-110g (about 4 ounces). So you would need the equivalent weight in store-bought or home-made meringue cookies. If you are making your own meringue cookies then we suspect that you would need to make a meringue with 2 medium (US large) egg whites and 110g (1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon) of caster or superfine sugar. Nigella doesn't have a recipe for crisp meringues but there are plenty of recipes available online and make sure that the meringues are fully dried out in a low oven. As the meringues will be crushed, the size doesn't particularly matter. If it is humid or wet then you may find it more difficult to make the meringues. This quantity will make very slightly more meringue than you will need (but a one egg white quantity is not enough), so if possible weigh out the meringues before using them.