Aotearoa & Maori · Dessert
Louise Cake
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts.
Ingredients
- 125 g unsalted butter, softened
- 75 g caster sugar
- 2 egg yolks
- 175 g plain flour
- 4 g baking powder (1 tsp)
- 200 g raspberry jam
- 70 g egg white (about 2), at room temperature
- 1 g fine salt
- 100 g caster sugar, for the meringue
- 60 g desiccated coconut
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Heat the oven to 180C (350F). Beat the butter and 75 g sugar until pale, beat in the yolks, then work in the flour and baking powder to a soft dough.
- Press the dough into a lined 20 cm square tin in an even layer, right into the corners, and bake 15 minutes until set and just colouring at the edges. 15 min
- While the base is in the oven, whisk the whites and salt to soft peaks, then add the 100 g sugar a spoonful at a time until the meringue is thick and glossy and a pinch feels smooth, not gritty, between your fingers. Fold in the coconut and stand it ready.
- Lower the oven to 160C (325F). The moment the base comes out, spread the jam over it right to the edges, spoon the coconut meringue over the hot jam in one movement and rough the surface up with a fork.
- Bake 20 minutes to 25 minutes until the meringue is set, dry on top and the colour of a plain biscuit, then cool completely in the tin before cutting into squares. 20 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Whipping a meringue 40 recipes
- Bowl and whisk are clean and dry with no trace of fat or yolk. Grease prevents the foam outright, and there is no recovering a bowl that had it partway through.
- The sugar went in gradually once the whites were already foaming, rather than all at once at the start.
- No grit: a little rubbed between finger and thumb feels smooth, so the sugar has dissolved into the foam rather than sitting in it.
- Stiff peaks means the tip stands with a slight bow when the whisk lifts, and the bowl can be tipped without the mass moving in it.
- Glossy and smooth rather than chalky or dull, with no liquid gathering underneath it in the bowl.
Where it goes wrong It was whipped past stiff peaks. A minute beyond glory the protein network tightens and tears, the foam turns grainy and matte, water weeps out beneath it, and folding that into anything gives a mixture that collapses on the way to the oven.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Demi-sec Champagne
- Also Right
- Off-dry Chenin (Vouvray)
- From the Taps
- Fruited sour
- Zero-Proof
- Coconut water with lime
Tropical sweetness wants bubbles or Chenin’s honeyed acid: richness met with lift, not more weight.
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