Bit of a mess.....Emily's Plum Eton Mess.

On a previous post I mentioned some sweet flavoursome Plums that My friend Emily at the Meldon Park kitchen garden grows. They really just need eating on there own. You don't really need any clever sauce or cream to make them taste good because these little babies are good.
However I had a few left today that were starting to go a little too soft so I boiled them with a little bit of sugar and water and turned them into a Plum compote.

Thick syrupy plums !

Then I thought a nice little Eton Mess would go down well tonight after my Beef Hotpot so this quick and easy pudding was made in no time at all. The 3 main components of the pudding mess is fruit usually, whipped cream and broken or unbroken meringue depending on what you prefer. In this case both.
I also made a lovely Strawberry Coulis to add to the Mess.
The strawberry Coulis was done in the same was as the Plum compote only after the strawberries had been soften I put the lot in my blender and blitzed it to a liquid.

I thought this was a great view of the blender in action until it sprayed my camera. Idiot.

The recipe for the meringue was handed down to me from my mother. She went to the supermarket to buy them and so did I ! ha ha ! Meringue making is very satisfying. Have you whisked the egg whites  enough or not enough. Have you added the right amount of sugar. Is the oven at the right temperature. It can be a right fanny on I mean a right wonderful culinary gift. But as I said previously this is meant to be a quick evening dessert. And besides that the plain fact is that unlike some ready made products you can get at the supermarket meringues are pretty good ready made.
So I whipped some double cream with a splash of Vanilla extract in it to a firm peak. Then folded the plum compote into the cream. I then broke up into little pieces one of the meringues and folded that into the mixture.
I then Dolloped ( one of my favourite culinary words ! ) the cream mix onto the meringues nest, sprinkled some more of the broken meringue pieces onto the pud and then finished it with a good drizzle of the strawberry coulis.
I don't usually have a sweet tooth but when I do their is no holding back. Hope you enjoy.