I love making Eton mess but this has to be my favourite so far.  My brother took me to a market last weekend and I saw some quince, I didn’t think you could get them this time of the year in the uk so I bought some to try out, I have only used them once before and wanted to have another go at a recipe with them. I find a lot of middle Eastern recipes with quince in so that’s where I got the idea to use those flavours. I poached the quince with rose petals, lemon, cinnamon, saffron, cardamom and star anise and vanilla until it was tender. I flavoured the  meringue with pistachios and rose petals and instead of cream I used honey and vanilla sweetened Greek yoghurt, then to decorate I added some vanilla Persian fairy floss and candied rose petals. It was packed with flavour and we really enjoyed it. If you can’t find quince then pears would work instead. The nutty chewy texture of the meringue was my favourite part.

For the meringue I broke 2 egg whites into a bowl on some scales and weighed them then i added double the amount of sugar. I always use this ratio of double the weight in sugar to eggs.

Preheat the oven to 110c

start whipping the egg whites until throthy then add the sugar and whip until stiff peaks, mean while I chopped up a hand full off pistachios and 2 tsp of rose petals. Once the meringue was stiff I folded half the nuts and petals then I spread the meringue onto a lined baking sheet and sprinkled on the rest of the nuts and petals and baked for approx 45 55 minutes,

to poach the quince

• 3 quince
• 1 lemon
• 6 cardamom pods
• 2 tbsp rose petals
• 3 star anise
• 1 cinnamon stick
• pinch of saffron
• i used 2 hibiscus flowers for colour
• 1/4 cup honey
• half a vanilla pod split
• 2 tbsp rose water

peel and cut the quince and cover with water and add all the ingredients then heat gently Until tender for about 45 minutes or until a fork inserted into them goes in easily remove quince and place in a bowl and cover with some of the poaching liquid.

For the Greek yogurt scrape the seeds out of the other half of the vanilla pod and mix into 1 1/2 cups Greek yogurt with 4 tbsp honey. To assemble the Eton mess break up the cooled meringue but keep it together in the same shape on a serving plate then spoon on the yogurt and then the quince finally decorate with some Persian fairy floss and some candied rose petals and some more pistachios, serve in bowls or glasses. Eat soon after it as been assembled.