This month’s baking experiments came in the form of meringue.

I’ve never made meringue before. For some reason I gad this idea that they were complicated. Also, what do you then do with the left over yolks?

But a nutty cake was requested for a birthday, and I thought Delia’s apricot and hazelnut meringue cake might fit the bill. Except, not having made meringue before, I needed to test it first.

Of course, it’s not, strictly speaking, a cake, but two large meringues sandwiched together (handily filling a gluten-free requirement). I didn’t bother with the filling for the experimental version, and used ground almonds instead of ground hazelnuts.

And have now decided on a giant mont blanc, with chestnut puree for the filling and marron glace for decoration, for the actual birthday version. Chestnuts are nuts, right?

Anyway, turns out I was wrong and meringues are amazingly easy to make, once you’ve successfully separated the eggs. Especially if you have a food mixer. By the time you’ve measured the sugar you need, the egg whites are at the stiff peak stage. Takes more time to butter and line the tins. And then you shove it in a low oven for an hour, and then leave it to cool in the cooling oven.

The only issue I had was that my tins are a couple of cm bigger than that requested by Delia, which is an easy fix, really. I was only going to scale up by one additional egg white, but when it came to it, that seemed a bit stingy. So I doubled the recipe. Also, I’d originally had the four eggs I planned to use, but I dropped the first egg yolk in too, so had to get more anyway.

At the time of writing it is still cooling in the oven, but the layers look a much better depth now. I still need to get double cream and chestnut puree for the filling.

But I think I’ll make meringues again, since they’re so easy.