We waste a huge amount of the food we buy, as much as 40% by some estimates.
This is terrible for the environment and for your wallet. But with a little bit of creativity you can turn the food you might previously have thrown away or allowed to pass its use-by date at the back of the fridge into a delicious dessert which will taste as good as anything shop-bought or made with specially-bought ingredients.
I found this out for myself when faced with leftovers from making other meals. I had egg whites left over from a recipe that only required yolks, some previously-frozen strawberries which were starting to go mushy from being defrosted for a couple of days, and some cream which had been opened.
I surprised myself by turning them into, you guessed it, an Eton mess. An Eton mess is made from meringue, strawberry sauce (or fresh strawberries) and whipped cream. I had enough to fill four glasses and my fussy young children loved it. Here’s how I did it.
Eton mess ingredients
For the meringues
- Two large egg whites
- 120g caster sugar
For the strawberry sauce
- 400g of strawberries (you can use fresh, frozen or defrosted – you’ll just have to cook for longer if frozen)
- 80 grams granulated sugar
- Juice from half a lemon
For the whipped cream
The beauty of this recipe is that you don’t need to be 100% spot on with all the measurements. For example, in making the strawberry sauce, I didn’t measure the sugar and I don’t think I used as much as 80g.
Method
You can make the meringues in advance if you like, to save time on making the Eton mess itself. Meringues will keep well in a sealed tub.
1. Heat the oven to 110C/100C fan/gas ¼.
2. Line a couple of oven trays (probably at least two depending on how big they are) with greaseproof paper.
3. Tip egg whites into a mixing bowl. Whisk until the mixture is like a fluffy cloud and stands in stiff peaks when the whisk is lifted out.
4. Start to add the caster sugar, one spoonful at a time. You can leave about 3-4 seconds between each addition. When ready, the mixture should be thick and glossy.
5. Scoop up heaped teaspoon of the mixture and ease it on to the baking tray (you don’t need to be fussy about how it looks). Repeat, spacing out each dollop, until you’ve used up all the mixture.
6. Bake for around 1hr 15 mins in the oven until the meringues sound crisp when tapped underneath and are a pale coffee colour.
7. Leave to cool.
8. Whip the cream: pour the cream into a mixing bowl and whisk vigorously until it is thick and stands up in stiff peaks when whisk is lifted. This should take a couple of minutes.
9. Make the strabwerry sauce: Heat the strawberries and sugar in a pan, add in the lemon juice. Heat and stir until it has formed a thick, glossy sauce. Use your spatula to break up the strawberries. If you want your sauce really smooth, you can run through a blender. Leave to cool.
10. Assemble: Break up the meringue with a spoon or by hand. Layer the meringue, sauce and whipped cream in the glass in that order, one on top of the other. This recipe should fill around four small-ish glasses with two layers of each. Sprinkle the finer pieces of broken meringue on top.
