Caryna Camerino, owner of Caryna’s Cakes and Camerino Bakery is an award winning baker and entrepreneur. You, the Linked Finance lenders helped her with finance to move into her new retail unit on 158 Capel street, Dublin 1 at the beginning of this year. There’s no better person to be our Linked Finance Expert on all things baking so we’ve asked her for some tips!

As a business owner, baking is my life. People yammer on about work/life balance but that doesn’t exist for me. There’s just life. Sometimes I’m working in Camerino kneading bread dough and I’m thinking up new sandwich fillings. Sometimes I’m driving through the city and stop for a good cup of coffee and end up in a conversation with a customer I once met at a market. Sometimes I’m nowhere near the bakery enjoying a beautiful day in the country, appreciating the sunshine and puffy clouds, and happily thinking about their culinary counterparts – marshmallows and meringues. Do big puffy clouds make you think of meringues? Is that just me?

At Camerino, we like to have our cakes change with the seasons. Meringue kisses are a brilliant way to showcase seasonal berries, citrus curds, fruit compotes and chocolate depending on when ingredients are at their best.

Here’s a basic recipe that you can use to make meringue kisses or even other shapes such as meringue nests or larger disks for pavlova.

Meringues
Ingredients:

• 120g egg whites (4 eggs)
• 240g caster sugar
• 15g boiling water
• 20g corn flour
• 5g white vinegar
• 5g vanilla extract

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 140 degrees

2. Clean your mixing bowl really well. If there is any residual grease, your egg whites will not whip properly.

3. Whisk all of the ingredients together for about 10 minutes. The mixture will be thick, smooth and glossy. It should hold a solid peak and the bowl should be able to be turned upside down without the mixture falling on your face. Go ahead and give it a try!

4. Using a piping bag, pipe 1 Euro coin-sized balls on a lined baking sheet, leaving a 50 cent-sized space in between.

5. Bake for 60 minutes

6. When cool, place a dollop of filling on the flat side of a meringue. Sandwich with another.

Enjoy!

Caryna