Back to life

In my real life outside blogs, this first term of the year is a hectic one. I am a fortunate person as thanks to my work I get to travel a lot and meet the wonderful people I work with all around the world.

This also allows me to savour the foods and products of different countries. I have been to Shanghai where my friend M. took me to a wonderful restaurant called M on the Bundt and a new one that has just been opened for Shanghai's Expo called Shanghai Tang Café, the first cafe of this exotic chain of shops. I have also been to Panama where we celebrated the presentation of our office there and more memorable than the food we ate were the flower arrangements that we had in our presentation thanks to tia Cuchi, who is a wonderfull lady who made the most beautifull flower arrangements you can imagine all with different sizes of white orchids, then over to Berlin where we did not have much time to eat but my dear collegue S. took me for a wonderfull 2 hour walk from the Brandenburg door to the old city I can't remember the name of the area, but it was a lovely walk.

London was another of my destinations and I love that city, one of my favourite parts of it is Marylebone Highstreet quite near our office so I get to walk through it every time I go there and go for a nice meal at Fish Works or any of the other lovely restaurants. But believe it or not the place that has impressed me the most is Santander, one of the most beautifull spanish cities located in the north of Spain, famous foodwise for its wonderfull anchovies.

I am lucky. In between trips, work and teenagers exams I have been cooking a bit and making meringues for first communions, birthdays, as presents...

Today I am sharing with you my Meringue and lemon curd cake, the combination is a creation of my sister J. And it has a few regular fans among friends and clients. The citrus flavour is a wonderfull combination with the meringue, we know this from lemon meringue pie, but this cake is only meringue double cream and lemon curd in alternating layers. You leave it in the fridge for a few hours before eating it, all these flavours combined in your mouth are just lovely, not too sweet, not too heavy and not too filling!. Try and find it in the collage my son J. has made for me with all my cakes!!

Recipe

Lemon curd

1 quantity of Delia's smith recipe. You can find it here

Meringue

6 egg whites

300 gr of sugar

Cream filling

500 ml of double cream whipped

Method

Preheat oven at 100 C

Whip the egg whites until soft peaks begin to form

Add the sugar gradually beating up after each addition

Continue whipping until the

Meringue is thick and glossy

Paint 3 21 cm circles in 3 sheets of baking paper

Divide the meringue mixture in 3 and cover the 3 circles, I use a pipe bag (manga pastelera)

Put in the oven on three baking trays for two hours.

When the meringue bases are cold alternate layers of meringue lemon curd and cream, finishing the last layer with the cream. I use either flaked toasted almonds or lemon zest to decorate it.

enjoy!