Christmas Pudding Meringues Recipe
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Recipe Overview
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 2 hours
Makes 15-16 meringue Christmas puddings
For Meringue
- 150g/5ozs egg whites (make sure there is no trace of yolk in them at all), room temperature
- 250g/8.8ozs caster or superfine sugar
- 35g/1.2ozs cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 16x 1cm/0.4inch cubes of Christmas cake
For Dipping
- 140g/5ozs dark chocolate
- 1 teaspoon coconut oil
- 40g/1.4ozs white chocolate
- 1/2 teaspoon coconut oil
- 8 spearmint leaf lollies, sliced in half horizontally
- 16 red mini m&ms
Step 1 PREPARE- First ensure that your bowl and beaters are very clean. Preheat oven to 80C/176F fan forced. Line 2 baking trays with parchment.
Step 2 WHISK - Whisk the egg whites until you get soft peaks. Turn off the beaters and add the cream of tartar and beat for 15 seconds. Then slowly add the sugar in a thin stream. Take a spatula and run it along the sides to incorporate any sugar that has collected around the top of the meringue. Whisk on high until you get stiff peaks (you should be able to turn the bowl upside down and the meringue won't move).
Step 3 SCOOP - Line 2 trays with baking parchment. Using a 2oz ice cream scoop with a spring, scoop out round scoops. Place a cube of Christmas cake in the centre. Scoop onto the trays, spacing with a 2 inch gap. If the meringue starts to stick to the scoop, rinse out with cold water and dry and start again. Bake for 2 hours. Turn off the oven and allow meringues to sit in the cooling off oven.
Step 4 DARK CHOCOLATE - Melt the dark chocolate in a double boiler or microwave and stir in the coconut oil ensuring that it is mixed in well. Dip the meringues into the chocolate allowing the excess to drip off and then place back on the parchment. Allow to set completely.
Step 4 WHITE CHOCOLATE - Melt the white chocolate in a double boiler or microwave and stir in the coconut oil mixing well. Spoon a teaspoon of this on top of the chocolate. Allow to firm up a little for 5-10 minutes. While it is firming up, cut the spearmint leaves in half across making two leaves out of each leaf. Affix two leaves to the top of the puddings and add an m&m. Allow this chocolate to set.
Storage: as it is hot during Christmas here I keep these in the fridge. They will keep for up to 2 weeks in the fridge. They will also freeze well for up to 1 month.
Personal Note
We actually put up our Christmas tree a few weeks earlier than normal on the 22nd of November. Our deal is that Mr NQN puts up the tree and I decorate it. I try and theme the tree according to colour or decorations. I get really inspired by some of the trees I see on tiktok and this year's theme was pink, green and brown.
We decided to get a big tree a couple of years ago because it sits in a room that has a high ceiling and shorter trees just looked a bit odd. It also has lights on it that flash in different patterns. It's a good tree but it does need a bit more greenery.
We don't really have that much to put under the tree anymore. Mr NQN and I buy each other gifts and we buy gifts for Teddy and Milo and I also have some friends that I buy gifts for but it has really dwindled over the past few years. My family now live overseas so we can't really do Christmas together (we do exchange Christmas texts though!). And Mr NQN's family don't do gifts as there are so many of them so we just do Christmas cards now. We used to do a Secret Santa where everyone would get one person to buy a $100 gift for but it ended up in an exchange of $100 gift cards! LOL. It wasn't very exciting.
"It looks so sad under the tree!" I said to Mr NQN. There were only 3 gifts under the tree. It was early days but then I decided to wrap some silly things. I bought Mr NQN some dried fruit and nuts. I boxed these up nicely and that added a Christmas cake. And then we added some more gifts for the dogs and the tree was looking less "lonely"!
So tell me Dear Reader, is your Christmas tree laden with presents? Would you add a piece of Christmas pudding in your meringues?