Deep Fried Meringue: The Masterchef Quest

I had been a huge fan of Masterchef Australia, watching the omnibus on Saturdays with my mom. One of the contestants, Poh Ling Yeow had made a deep fried meringue. The judges had rated it the best dish of the day, very unique and a stroke of genius.

Being a huge fan of meringue, I thought I just HAD to try it. I wasn’t sure if I should present this as a challenge for my Taste Buds, but strongly advise you try these!

The recipe can be found following the link: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/pohskitchen/stories/s2838018.htm

Poh also explains how to make a Pandan Crème Patisserie in the recipe, however, I used Nutella. I also read that red bean paste goes well in the meringues.

I made only half the recipe for the meringues. I did not want to end up with too many. I found the meringue fairly easy to make. The most difficult part was to spoon some Nutella in the centre of the ladle as I felt I just did not have enough hands. However, I lay the ladle down in the bowl, spooned in some Nutella and then just covered it with more meringue.

The heat of the oil is important. Poh suggests it should be hot enough to brown a piece of bread in 15 seconds. I found that controlling the heat was very important, because these meringues don’t necessarily burn, but if the oil is too hot, they brown too quickly and then the center would be raw. You then constantly have to readjust your heat to keep it controlled, on my stove anyway.

This would be the first time I tried to make spun sugar. I found it easy to get the sugar caramelized, but not so easy to spin it as neatly as they do on TV! The sugar continues to harden and it gets quite hard to shape it as it cools down. And if it’s too hot, it falls straight down and doesn’t twirl around all pretty like on TV. I am far from being a Masterchef!

I was pretty proud of myself that I managed to pull off a recipe made by a contestant who made it up to the final week of Masterchef. The end result is like a light doughnut, and the spun sugar adds a bit of heavenly crisp which makes it taste so much better.

Enjoy!