Wild Seaweed and Chocolate Meringue Recipe

I love sweet, it is one of the flavours of my childhood. When I was growing up, Sunday lunch was always a big deal and automatically included homemade pudding as part of the experience. In autumn I remember the warm fluffy texture of the meringue topping in lemon and meringue pie, the tart lemony layer and the crumbly pastry, straight from the oven. In summer, pavlova; large meringues over-flowing with cream and summer fruits. These are both exciting memories and the sickly sweet kind, as I was very familiar with eating too much dessert as a child.

Sweet meringues, with a twist

As an adult, my love of sweet hasn't disappeared though it has been redirected slightly. I try and reduce the amount of sugar I use in recipes and incorporate unrefined sugars rather than the refined white stuff. Unrefined sugar retain more natural minerals. These meringues aren't too sweet, they're made using unrefined sugars and wild Cornish seaweed and are delicious! The seaweed chosen has a good amount of protein in which helps balance the carbohydrate dominance in them too, and if seaweed meringues don't appeal to you, I dare you to try these, especially if you like sweet.

(Making seaweed meringues, combining the different brown sugars, little by little, the seaweed and chocolate)

These meringues are a little different. First of all they contain no white sugar. Second, they are small (you don't need to over do it on these) and thirdly, they contain hand picked, wild, Cornish seaweed. They freeze well too.

They contain no white sugar.
They are small (you don't need to over do it on these)
They contain hand picked, wild, Cornish seaweed.
Confession time: It's not my recipe, I've tweaked and altered it slightly, but basically it is from Prannie Rhatigan's Irish Seaweed Kitchen. Highly recommended.

(My wild picked, home dried nori/laver/lava/porphyra seaweed, then whisking it into the meringue mixture)

Seaweed Meringues with Cornish Seaweed

Makes 65

4 organic egg whites
40 g dark muscavado sugar
40 g soft brown sugar
125 g unrefined sugar
3 tbsp flaked and dried nori/laver seaweed
1 tbsp cocao powder

Preheat the oven to 150°C and line 2-3 large baking trays with baking paper. In a large, spotlessly clean bowl whisk the egg whites into soft peaks. In a separate bowl, mix the sugars and crush any lumps. Add the sugar to the egg whites, just 2 tablespoons at a time, whisking until the whites are stiff, before adding a further 2 tablespoons. Continue until all the sugar is incorporated into the egg whites. Fold in the seaweed and cocoa powder and combine well.

Using two teaspoons, drop dollops of the mixture onto the lined baking tray with space between each. Place in the oven for 20 minutes. Turn off the oven and leave the door shut until the meringues have cooled down completely, or leave overnight.

Store in an airtight container for 2 weeks or freeze in a tupperware container, separating layers of meringues with the baking paper used to bake the meringues on.

I make seaweed tasters (handmade snacks using hand-harvested seaweeds) on all my seaweed foraging courses, where you'll learn so much more about seaweeds. Here's a small, small insight on my seaweed blog.