meringue heaven

Probably my least favourite sweets, desserts, pastries are things involving meringue. Far, far too sugary sweet, powdery, often with a very unpleasant tang of egg white, not to mention hardly ever as delightfully sticky as one expects and wants. While a well made lemon pie is lovely, a lemon meringue pie (or any other poor pie covered in meringue) is, in my opinion, an abomination.

Having said that, I must admit that I recently by accident - and no not in a long term quest for the perfect meringue, I've long ago given up on meringue and me being something compatible - stumbled over what can quite possibly be considered the world's best meringue. Namely the ginormous meringue, from bakery/café Schelins konditori situated in small town Sala (an hour's drive or so north of Stockholm).

I do love the look of over sized flavoured meringues and as the ones on display at this café looked splendid and perfect for my mother's sweet tooth - not as discerning as her daughter's - we opted for one pear meringue to take home as a treat for her.

As a sweet and caring mother she said I could have a sample, that it was quite lovely in pear flavour and unusually sticky. And, well, let's just say that was kind of an understatement... It was not only pretty cute, it was quite heavenly in bite. A distinct but still subtle pear flavour, reasonably sweet for a meringue, no egg whitey tang and a toffee stickiness that was... divine.

When we passed Sala some weeks later we popped by the bakery and bought two other meringues, one lemon, one raspberry. Both equally goody good as the pear one. Now I'm quite, quite glad we don't live close to a bakery with such meringues, because one might easily get addicted to their sticky sweet loveliness. A loveliness that hasn't at all turned me into a meringue lover. I'm just pleased to say I've found a hidden gem, I've discovered meringue heaven.

~ Oh, and Happy National Day ~