Meringue roll with lemon curd and whipped cream

This is one of the easiest and most delicious desserts ever! Meringue roll is prepared without flour, it turns out just weightless. Sweet airy meringue with delicate cream and sourness of lemon curd is the perfect combination that will not leave anyone indifferent!

Ingredients

• For the meringue:
• Egg whites - 5 pcs.
• Sugar - 190 g
• Vanilla sugar - 10 g
• Salt - 1 pinch
• Lemon juice - 1 teaspoon
• For the lemon curd:
• Yolks - 5 pcs.
• Lemon (juice and zest) - 1 pc. (200 g)
• Sugar - 30-60 g
• Butter - 20 g
• For cream:
• Cream chilled 33% - 250 ml
• Vanilla sugar - 10 g
• Sugar (optional) - to taste
• For decoration:
• Black chocolate - 15-20 g
• Cream - 15-20 ml

Directions

1. Separate the egg whites from the yolks. We will need proteins for meringue, yolks for lemon curd.
2. Add lemon juice and salt to the egg white bowl.
3. The bowl and beaters of the egg white mixer must be clean and dry.
4. Beat egg whites until foamy. Gradually add sugar and vanilla sugar in small portions. The general rule for meringue is that sugar should be 1.5 times more by weight than proteins.
5. Beat egg whites with sugar until stiff peaks. The mass should increase very well in volume, be white, glossy and keep its shape well - remain motionless when turning the bowl. Whipping time is about 10 minutes. Do not over-beat the whites - if the meringue has lost its gloss and has become looser, then the whites are already over-whipped and nothing will work.
6. Line an inverted baking sheet with parchment. We fix the parchment in the corners. Take good quality parchment. A silicone or teflon mat is also suitable.
7. We heat the oven to 180 degrees.
8. We spread the meringue (meringue) on parchment.
9. We level the meringue into a rectangular cake 1.5-2 cm thick - not thinner, otherwise it will be difficult to separate the meringue from parchment later.
10. Bake the meringue cake for 18-25 minutes at 180 degrees. Focus not on time, but on the state of the meringue: a slightly golden crust should appear on top, small cracks may appear on the surface. The crust will be slightly crispy, but the inside of the cake will remain soft. Do not overdry the meringue, otherwise it will crumble. If your oven is baking too hard, lower the temperature to 150-160 degrees.
11. We turn the finished meringue along with the parchment on which it was baked onto the second parchment. While the meringue is hot, remove the first parchment. Let the crust cool down to room temperature.
12. Using a grater, remove the lemon zest - only the yellow part of the peel.
13. To make it easier to squeeze the juice out of a lemon, first roll it with pressure on the surface of the table. Then we cut the lemon across and squeeze the juice from both parts over the strainer.
14. Cooking lemon curd - a very tasty layer for meringue roll.
15. Add the lemon juice, zest and a little sugar to the egg yolks.
16. The amount of sugar for making curd depends on the size and acidity of the lemon. First add some sugar, then adjust the taste of the curd.
17. Cook the curd over low heat until thickened, stirring constantly so that the yolks do not boil. Remove the curd from the stove, add butter and a little more sugar to taste.
18. If you haven’t cooked lemon curd yet, then you need to fix it urgently. This is an insanely delicious cream that you can eat with spoons!
19. To prepare the cream, beat well-chilled cream with vanilla sugar. You can also add regular sugar to the cream to taste, but I do not add, the sweetness of the meringue is enough for me.
20. The meringue cake and lemon curd should be completely cool, only then you can start assembling the roll.
21. Lubricate the meringue cake with a thin layer of lemon curd, not reaching 3-4 cm to one edge on the smaller side.
22. Spread whipped cream evenly, also not reaching 3-4 cm from the edge.
23. Using parchment, carefully roll the roll towards the edge free of cream.
24. We send the meringue roll with whipped cream and lemon curd to the freezer for 30-60 minutes to stabilize.
25. For decor, you can melt a small amount of dark chocolate in hot cream and decorate the roll.
26. Meringue roll with lemon curd and whipped cream - beautiful and insanely delicious!