Recipe : Clotted Cream Strawberry Shortcake Meringue Roulade

I was surprised to see that there were still strawberries at the farmers' market last week. This recipe, provided by Posh Birds, purveyors of fine eggs (including free-range duck, quail and hen eggs), sounds like a fabulous way of showcasing them, but could also be adapted to use other fruit, maybe of the more autumnal variety. I fancy giving it a go with caramelised apples or maybe some zingy mandarines or passion fruit. 

 Strawberry shortcake, clotted cream meringue roulade  

Serves 8 /10

Ingredients

For the roulade:

A little vegetable oil

4 Posh Birds duck egg whites 

250g caster sugar

For the filling:

200ml double cream

1 tbsp icing sugar, plus extra to dust

1 tsp vanilla extract

400g strawberries, diced

200g shortbread biscuits, roughly crushed

200g clotted cream

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan oven/gas mark 4. Grease and line a Swiss roll tin (23 x 33cm) with baking parchment, then lightly oil the parchment on top.

2. Put the egg whites into a large grease free bowl. Whisk the whites until soft peaks form, then add the caster sugar, one tablespoon at a time, and whisk until each spoonful has dissolved. Continue until all the sugar has been incorporated and the mixture is thick and glossy.

3. Spread the meringue mix evenly over the tray and pop into the oven. Bake for 10 minutes, and then turn the oven down to 150°C/130°C fan oven/gas mark 2. Continue to bake for 20 minutes. It should be the colour of pale toffee and lightly crisp. Take it out of the oven, cool for 10 minutes then up turn onto another sheet of baking parchment sprinkled with sugar and then peel off the first sheet used for cooking.

4. Whip the double cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl until soft peaks form. Fold in the chopped strawberries (saving a few for decorating) and crushed shortbread biscuits (again, saving a few bits for the decoration). When the meringue has cooled, spread the strawberry mix all over it, then dollop the clotted cream in various places on top of the cream mixture and swirl in. Finally roll the meringue up into a roulade. Then decorate with more clotted cream, crushed biscuits, strawberries and icing sugar.

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