Meringue Christmas Trees

I made ice cream the other day, and had several egg whites left over. Of course, the go-to recipe to use up egg whites is meringue, but I thought I'd give them a Christmas twist by making Christmas Tree gifts for my lovely friends! This recipe will make you 1 small and 2 large Christmas trees.

You'll need:
- 3 egg whites
- 175 g sugar
- 100 g chocolate
- 300 ml whipped cream
- Mixed berries
- Icing sugar for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 140 degrees Celsius.

On the wrong side of a sheet of baking paper (you may need a few baking trays), draw with pencil circles with the following diameters:
- 2 x 10 cm
- 2 x 8 cm
- 3 x 7 cm
- 3 x 5 cm
- 3 x 4 cm
- 3 x 3 cm
Set the baking paper aside.

First, beat the eggs with an electric mixer until soft peaks form.

Add the sugar one tablespoon at a time, beating well between to ensure it dissolves. The mixture will get glossy and very thick when it's ready.

Now, there are a few ways you can do the next step. If you're accomplished at piping, pop the meringue mixture into a piping bag with a wide round nozzle, and pipe the meringue mixture into the round shapes on the baking paper that you drew before. As you can see in the top left of the picture below, pipe the smallest circles into a tall cone shape, for the tops of your trees. Alternatively, if you're like me, you might feel a little more comfortable just using a spoon to shape your rounds.

Bake in the oven for 45 minutes, and then turn the oven off and leave the meringues in for another 45 minutes to ensure that they dry fully. Take them out of the oven and let cool on a wire rack.

Melt the chocolate...

And dip in the points of the tree tops (top right). Then coat the bottoms of the flat rounds, and leave to try (if you're in a hurry, a few minutes in the fridge works wonders!).

 Now, it's best to do this just before serving. Spread a layer of whipped cream on a plate, and pop on one of the base meringue rounds in the centre.

Then spread on some cream onto the next layer up, ready to add to the stack. The cream acts like glue, making sure the tree is stable.

And build your Christmas tree!

Then arrange your mixed berries around the base of your tree - like little gorgeous presents!

Finally, give your tree a final dusting of snow-like icing sugar for an extra festive kick.

Repeat this process with the remaining trees and you have your own delectable forest. And of course, you can decorate these any way you like - have fun with it, and enjoy!