Cuppucino in a Cupcake

My friend Jane was on her honeymoon in Australia and came over to visit us 2 days ago. I made this Cuppucino Cupcake as a dessert. Up till the last minute, I was undecided if I should make this or a lemon meringue pie or simply serve up some red bean soup. The choice became obvious when Hubby couldn't find time to get some groceries for me, including the frozen shortcrust pastry sheet needed for the lemon meringue pie.

The original recipe was for a whole cake but since I just bought some pretty cupcake paper cups, I decided to make them into little cupcakes instead, with the meringue on top resembling cuppucino froth.

This is the first time I'm attempting a meringue looking dessert. After reading Happy Home Baking's site, I'd check out some links on tips and problems of making a meringue before I started. This caused me to deviate from the recipe a little. The recipe called for the whipped egg white and sugar to be added to the unbaked batter and baked together at 180 degrees for 45 mins. However what I read about meringue is that it needs to be baked at a high temperature (like 230 degrees) for only about 5 minutes.

Thus I put the cupcakes into the oven to be baked for about 20 mins while I whipped up the meringue. Then I took out the cupcakes and spooned the meringue on top, before returning them to the oven and increasing the oven temperature to 230 C for another 5 mins.

The end result looked quite pleasing. The cake was moist and soft and the meringue was like toasted marshmallow, soft and sweet. All of us gobbled up our "cuppa" over a cup of Lavazza coffee. Definitely caffeine overdose that night.....lol

When transformed to cupcakes, the batter was only enough for 6 cupcakes, but with the meringue I whipped up, I could easily have covered 12 or more. I think this is because I'd either used deep cups with small surface area or I'd overfilled the cakes. With the leftover meringue, I baked them in a small baking dish, thinking I could perhaps make a pavlova base.

After searching a few sites, I realised that although a pavlova base is essentially a meringue, the method of baking is different. Pavlova is a traditional and popular Australian dessert that is usually topped with fruits. Salt and cornflour is usually added to the egg white and sugar and it is baked on low heat (100 - 130 C) for a long time (1 - 1.5hr) until it is firm and crispy. It is not essential for them to be tan looking. For meringues used in desserts such as Lemon Meringue pies, they are softer and have slightly browned peaks on top. To get this effect, we should go for a high temperature and shorter baking time.

Now I wondered if I had followed the original recipe, would I have ended up with a crispier and whiter 'froth' instead?