How to make Eton Mess with coffee and hazelnut

The true story of Eton Mess's origins includes variations on the standard strawberry, cream and meringue theme — one involving bananas. We have to admit, though, that a coffee and hazelnut twist on the old classic is a new one on us.

The recipe comes from — unsurprisingly — the coffee-mad folks at www.coffee-direct.co.uk. It takes about 15 minutes to put together, but will be quite happy prepared in advance and kept in the fridge until it's time to serve up.

Recipe: Coffee and hazelnut Eton Mess

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 400g strawberries
• 50g hazelnuts
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 300ml double cream
• 4 meringue nests
• 330ml of cooled-down coffee 

Method

Chop the strawberries into chunks, put them in a bowl. Sprinkle with sugar and set aside.

Toast the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan, allow to cool then roughly chop.

In a bowl, whisk the cream to a firm density. Slowly add half of the coffee while you continue whisking.

Roughly crush the meringues and stir quickly into the cream. Mix in half of the strawberries and half of the hazelnuts.

To construct the Eton mess, put a spoonful of strawberries into the bottom of four glasses, follow with some of the meringue mixture, a drizzle of the remaining coffee and then some hazelnuts. Repeat the layers until the ingredients are used up, and it's ready to serve.

The true story of Eton Mess – and how to make the perfect one

The question, it turns out, isn't 'why' it's called Eton Mess, but whether it's actually called 'Eton Mess' at all...