Pistachio Meringue Stack with Rose Cream and Strawberries

   Pleasant Grove is celebrating Strawberry Days this week. Emily and I went and were planning to buy some strawberries so we could make this. Sadly there were no strawberries for sale there. Weird. Strawberry Days severely lacked strawberries. We had been looking at this recipe on Food52 for a couple of months so we decided to make it anyway, and I am glad we did. So so good!


Meringue
6 lg egg whites
pinch of salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar (superfine is better)
1 teas balsamic vinegar
1 cup pistachios, finely chopped

Berries
2 lbs strawberries
2 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs rose water*

Cream
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup mascarpone+
1 Tbs rose water*

Garnish
1 Tbs pistachios, chopped

   Preheat oven to 250 F. Lightly grease 3 baking sheets and line with parchment paper. Draw an 8 inch circle on each (you can use can use a cake pan to trace circles.)
   In a clean metal or glass bowl, whisk egg whites with salt until soft peaks form. Whisk in sugars, one tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vinegar and whisk until mixture is glossy and hold stiff peaks. Gently fold in the chopped nuts.
   Divide the meringue mixture equally between each of the baking sheets. Spread out mixture to the edge of the circle, smoothing the tops with the back of a round spoon. Bake until tops are crisp and dry, about an hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. Turn off oven and leave pans in oven to cool for an hour with the door slightly ajar.
   While meringues cool, slice strawberries. Gently toss with sugar and rose water. Let stand for 1/2 an hour.
   Beat cream and mascapone with the rose water until mixture just holds stiff peaks.
   Invert thecooled meringue discs onto a plate and gently peal off parchment paper. Invert onto another plate so they are right side up. Spread a third of the cream over one of the discs, followed by a third of the strawberries. Repeat layering with remaining meringues. Garnish with the pistachios.

If you wanted to you could make the meringues and assemble it later. Just be sure you wrap them up and keep them in a dry place. They keep for about a week.

* I didn't think the rose water would really matter, but Emily already had a bottle so we used it. It was really good., though I think you could probably add a little vanilla or almond extract to the cream if you didn't want to buy it.
+ When we opened the container of mascapone we bought it was moldy. It was late so we decide to just skip it and used 2 cups of the cream with a little sugar added. I didn't even notice that something was missing when we ate it.