Blueberry Meringues With Poppyseeds and Dark Chocolate

I've been making a lot of fresh pasta lately and the pasta dough I have been making has been an egg yolk dough. As a result, I have a shit ton of egg whites chilling an a quart container in my fridge. I am going to be making an egg white cupcake-cake (you know the ones where you lay out a bunch of cupcakes and frost it into a design) later this week for a birthday party, so stay tuned for that, but in the meantime I decided to make some simple meringues. 

I am not a huge fan of plain meringues, they are a little too sugary for me, so I decided to balance them with a homemade tangy blueberry compote and some bitter dark chocolate. The poppy seeds add a nice toasted finish too. 

Blueberry Meringues With Poppyseeds and Dark Chocolate

This recipe is based off of Dorie Greenspan's Snowball Meringue recipe with a few slight modifications. 

Yield: Makes 10 meringues

INGREDIENTS:

For the meringue:

• 3 (90 grams) large egg whites, at room temp (this is very important)

• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

• 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

• 2 tablespoons powdered sugar (confectioners sugar)

• 3/4 cup (150 grams) plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 2 tablespoon poppyseeds

• 1/2 cup chopped dark chocolate

For the blueberry compote:

• 1 cup fresh blueberries

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar

• juice and zest of 1/2 lemon

STEPS:

* Take your eggs out of the fridge 1 hour before you begin your meringues. Keeping the egg whites at room temp will allow the eggs to get the volume that you are looking for with big fluffy meringues.

Preheat your oven to 250°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 

Make the compote: In a small saucepan over a medium/high heat, combine your blueberries, sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest. Let the mixture cook down, until it has has reduced by half. Once your compote has reduced, you can either leave the blueberries whole or muddle them in the pan for a more compote-like texture. Be careful, the mixture is hot.  

Set aside to cool. 

Make the meringues: Prepare a stand mixer or electric hand mixer with the whisk attachment (stand mixer is easiest unless you're trying to get a big arm workout in). Make sure your tools are VERY clean, if there’s any water or residue of any kind, your meringues might not turn out and that would suck.

When you know that your bowl is thoroughly clean, add the egg whites, salt, and cream of tartar. Whip on high for 3 minutes until soft peaks form. 

While the egg whites are being whipped, in a small bowl sift together 2 tablespoons powdered sugar and 1 tablespoon granulated sugar (discarding the big bits left in your sieve). Set aside. 

Once the soft peaks form, keep your stand mixer running at a medium-high speed and slowly add 1 tablespoon of sugar at a time, until all the sugar has been added. This whole process should take you five minutes. Once the sugar is added, continue to whip for 2-3 more minutes until you have thick, glossy, stiff peaks. 

Remove meringue mixture from the mixer and fold in 1/3 of your cooled blueberry compote to create a beautiful swirled effect, reserving the rest for later. Using a tablespoon, spoon out dollops of the meringue mixture onto the parchment paper, about 1/2 inch apart from each other. Taking a smaller spoon, create a divot in the middle of each meringue. Fill each divot with a small about of the reserved blueberry compote, and top with chopped chocolate and poppyseeds. 

Bake in the oven for 1 hour, do not open the oven at any time. Let cool completely before you eat or the compote will fall right through the meringue. Enjoy!

If you liked this recipe, you may also like these Blueberry and Cream Bars