Blood Orange Meringue Bars
This Blood Orange Meringue Bars recipe includes a shortbread base topped with a bright homemade blood orange curd and Swiss meringue topping for a truly perfect winter dessert.
Servings 12
Calories 388kcal
Ingredients
Base
- 145 grams / 5.11 ounces butter room temperature
- 200 grams / 1 ¼ cups plain flour
Blood orange curd
- 150 grams / ¾ cup superfine/caster sugar
- 40 grams / ⅓ cup corn starch
- 209 grams / 1 cup - 2 tablespoons blood orange juice
- 30 grams / 2 tablespoons lime juice
- 65 grams / 4 large egg yolks
- 60 grams / 2.10 ounces butter cubed
Meringue topping
- 114 grams / 3 large egg whites
- 125 grams / ⅔ cup superfine/caster sugar
- ¼ teaspoon sea or kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Base
- Preheat your oven to 160C/320F and line a baking tin with greaseproof paper.
- Place the flour and butter into a bowl and beat on low until the mixture looks like a rough crumble and no piece of butter is larger than a pea.
- Spoon into your baking tin and press down firmly and evenly.
- Place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until the edges are slightly beginning to pull away from the tin.
- Remove and allow to cool completely.
- Lower the oven temperature to 140C/285F.
Blood orange curd
- For the blood orange curd filling, place the sugar, corn starch and juice into a small saucepan on medium heat, whisking until thickened and it has gone from looking cloudy to a deeper color and slightly translucent, approximately 3 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and add in the egg yolks, whisking swiftly to combine.
- Return to the heat, whisking until the mixture has thickened, approximately 1 minute.
- Toss in the butter, whisking until melted and glossy looking.
- Set aside to cool until the edge of your saucepan is lukewarm to the touch.
- Spoon onto the base and spread out evenly.
- Place in the oven to bake for 25 minutes.
- Remove and allow to cool to room temperature before transferring to the fridge to set for at least 2 hours or overnight.
Meringue topping
- For the Swiss meringue, place a small saucepan on low heat with enough water not to touch the base of a heatproof bowl.
- Place the egg whites, sugar and salt into the bowl and put over the simmering water.
- Beat on low until your egg whites reach 73C/165F (if you don’t have a thermometer, the best test is to put a clean finger into the egg whites and you feel no sugar granules between your finger or can’t keep your finger in the mixture for more than 3 seconds).
- Remove the egg whites from the heat and allow to rest for 5 minutes.
- Beat on medium speed with a whisk attachment until stiff, approximately 7 minutes.
- Add the vanilla extract and whisk to combine.
- Either spoon the meringue on top of your curd or pipe as per your preference.
- Using a blowtorch, lightly burn the meringue to your preference.
- Slice and serve.
- Dig in!
Notes
- Blood orange juice: This is best freshly pressed so the flavor is strong and has no additives. If you cannot source blood oranges, simply replace with regular oranges in equal measure.
- Lime juice: The lime juice is best freshly pressed and serves to add a depth of acidity to our curd so as to ensure the curd isn't too sweet due to the natural sweetness in blood oranges.
- Corn starch: Sometimes termed cornflour in certain parts of the globe. Corn starch does need to be heated to 95C/203F before it is activated to thicken and acts as insurance in setting our curd during the baking process alongside the egg yolks.
- Baking tin: A 18x18 cm or 7x7 inch square baking tin works well here, though a rectangle tin of similar size would also work well.
- Offset spatula: A small spatula helps smooth out shortbread base, curd filling and shaping the meringue topping to your preference (if not piping).
Nutrition
Calories: 388kcal