The sorry roulade

One morning I was flicking through one of Mary Berry's recipe books when I came across a very attractive-looking roulade with delicious raspberries in it (I have a penchant for raspberries). A closer look at the recipe revealed that the roulade itself was made of meringue - I remember thinking to myself that I didn't think that it was possible to roll meringue.

I guess I should have known at that point that it was doomed to failure.

After a quick trip to Tesco to pick up some fruit I got the whisk out and prepared the meringue. That was fine. I popped it into the oven. I took it out. Lovely. Smelt delicious. I followed the instructions and turned it over. Almonds scattered across the table but it stayed in one piece. Slathered whipped cream and raspberries over it. Managed to avoid stealing raspberries. All good at this point.

And then I had to roll it. Now meringue is a strange substance. When you bake it the top goes all brown and crispy. It cracks when you poke it. When it's still hot it is all moist and gooey inside. Obviously I had let it cool for a while, thinking that maybe it would be fine but as soon as I started to roll, it fell apart. Deep crevices formed and parts of it started to cave in. Cream oozed everywhere. Almonds flew off. I managed to get it into a sort of roll and looked in despair at the sorry mess.

I wonder afterwards if it was some sort of April Fools recipe, and the photo was some sort of clever Photoshop affair. Or perhaps I made some crucial mistake. Maybe I'll never know :) Still, I did try the roulade before throwing half of it away. Well actually I ate all the raspberries and then threw it away - my mum rescued the other half and said that she'd have it for breakfast. It did taste nice at least!

Observe my first disaster: