Stone Fruit Eton Mess

Over the summer I was reading book about a woman who was visiting a fictional town based off Ocracoke Island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. In the story, the woman visits a bakery and the bakery owner has all of these delicious desserts and always seems to know how to make something to put you in a better mood. One day she asks the woman what her favorite dessert is and the woman replies that it is Eton Mess, an English dessert that not many people know how to make. The bakery owner ends up making an eton mess for her that she thinks is wonderful.

Of course, I was instantly intrigued. I'd never heard of Eton mess before so that obviously meant that I wanted to make one right away. I ended up forgetting about it for a few weeks until I received the September issue of Cooking Light magazine and there was a recipe for Eton mess inside.

Traditionally Eton mess is made with strawberries or bananas and mixed with freshly made cream. I definitely plan on trying the original version, but I rarely remember to cook (bake) with stone fruits such as nectarines and plums so I wanted to give this version a try.

Stone Fruit Eton Mess
Source: Cooking Light
Servings: 4
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Ingredients:

• 1 ripe plum, diced
• 1 ripe nectarine, diced
• 3 tbsp. sugar, divided
• ½ cup plain, reduced-fat Greek yogurt
• ⅓ cup heavy whipping cream
• ¼ tsp. almond extract
• ½ cup crushed meringue cookies 

Directions:
1. Combine the plum, nectarine and 1 tablespoon of sugar together in a small bowl. Toss to combine and set aside.
2. Combine the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar together with the Greek yogurt, heavy whipping cream and almond extract in the bowl of your stand mixer. Beat on medium high speed until soft peaks form.
3. Divide the whipped cream mixture into four bowls and top with the fruit. Sprinkle the meringue cookies on top.

Making meringue cookies takes a pretty long time and are not always easy to find in a grocery store. You can opt to leave them off or substitute another light and airy almond or sugar style cookie.

I don't cook with almond extract very often and I didn't expect Tom to like this at all but we bought thought this was an absolutely incredibly dessert. The Greek yogurt really lightened up the dish and the fruit added just the right amount of sweetness.