Peppermint Meringue Cake, Part II

Ok, so I've been corrected. Technically the storm we had this weekend was a blizzard, I think. Blizzards can actually occur without any snowfall at all if the winds are high enough and there is enough snow on the ground to limit visibility. Did you know that? I didn't. So, I stand corrected. However, the storm still didn't drop the two feet of snow that was expected. That was all I meant.

Anyway, back to the cake. Day two is the easy day. All I had to do was take the meringues out of the oven and make peppermint syrup. It kind of lulls you into a false sense of ease . . . until you realize that 2/3 of the recipe is yet to come.

So, I took the meringues out of the oven this morning. They look great. No cracks at all. I really think that leaving them in the oven changes everything. I attempted to make a pavlova once and didn't leave it in the oven . . . let's just say it didn't stay in one piece.

It says to store them in a single layer in an airtight container. I just make sure they are tightly covered with plastic wrap because I don't have anything that big to store them in.

So, then comes the peppermint syrup. The recipe calls for peppermint schnapps. I don't happen to have that sitting around. However, there is creme de menthe sitting around (for the real deal version of these brownies -- one of my dad's specialties). So, I used that instead. It works fine, as far as I can tell. It also makes it a festive green color. Not that that matters when it is being spread on chocolate cake. Oh well.

This is about as simple as syrup gets: 1 part water to 1 part sugar.

And it went amazingly fast this time. Dissolving sugar tends to fall under the same category as thickening things on the stove for me: it usually takes forever. Today I was done in about ten minutes. Amazing.

And now, I get to dream of making the cake, frosting and putting this all together tomorrow. Phew.