Homemade Eton Mess Recipe

What comes to mind when you hear the word "Eton?" A perfect button-down men's shirt that can dress up jeans, dress down slacks, or be tucked into a suit and topped off with a tie? A prestigious British boarding school? Or do you think of a unique, decidedly decadent dessert?

We're willing to bet that after you have tried this tasty treat, the recipe for which was put together by recipe developer Susan Olayinka of The Flexible Fridge, you'll associate Eton less with pressed shirts and young scholars than with sweetness and strawberries. And while you may associate Eton with starched shirts and stiff upper lips and whatnot, this dessert, Eton mess, is indeed believed to have originated at the educational institution, and it is served annually at the cricket match played between Eton and their rivals from the Harrow School.

No need for you to wait for a turn on the pitch to try a taste of the stuff, though!

It doesn't take much to make a few servings of Eton mess, and that goes for both ingredients and prep work — in fact, the hardest thing abut this recipe is waiting around for an hour as things chill.

All told, you'll need about five cups of strawberries (divided into a three-cup portion and a two-cup portion), half of a lemon, juiced, three tablespoons of sugar, two and a half cups of heavy cream, and between four and five meringues, depending on their size. (And, of course, more if you are using minis.)

Begin the recipe by trimming the stems off the strawberries, then chopping the berries into quarters or even eighths if any are quite large — you want the fruit all nearly uniform in size. Now divide the strawberries into two portions, one with three cups of strawberries and the other with two cups of berries.

Now place the three cups of chopped strawberries in a saucepan followed by the juice of half a lemon and sugar. Cook the strawberries down on low heat for seven minutes, stirring often. 

After seven minutes, the strawberries will have turned quite soft. Carefully pour the berries into a strainer and push them down into the mesh, squeezing out the syrup into a bowl in which you can reserve the syrup.

Now get a large mixing bowl (or a stand mixer, like a classic KitchenAid), and place into it that heavy cream. Begin to whisk the cream with an electric whisk (or a mixer attachment), and whisk away until the cream forms stiff peaks — this will take three to four minutes.

After those three or four minutes, break the meringues into pieces with your hands, aiming for bite-sized pieces, and then scatter these into the whisked cream. Now place the two cups of chopped strawberries into the mixture, and mix the Eton mess together with a spoon or fork. Then refrigerate the Eton mess and strawberry syrup (separately) for one hour.

To assemble this storied dessert, ideally you can get your hands on a proper glass dessert bowl, but any bowl or wide glass is fine. Start by placing a tablespoon or so of the strawberry syrup into the bowl, followed by the Eton mess mixture, and then finish it off with another drizzle of strawberry syrup on top.

The dessert is now ready to be served, cricket match against your longtime school foes optional.