Kisses of silver

Meringue box, Sterling silver, Lone Løvschal, photo: Iben Bølling Kaufmann

 A few years ago i made this little silver box for an exhibition on Bornholm (one of my favorite places in the world). The title of the exhibition was 'Lækkerier' ('Sweeties') and I found it intriguing to work with the delicious shape of a meringue; making a box that would protect your meringue, should you bring it with you in your pack lunch.

The shape is a complex juxtaposition of curves that comes naturally when extruding the egg/sugar-fluff with a piping bag. Unfortunately I wasn't able to use that technique when baking a fine silver meringue; but, with the help of a press tool I made up for the purpose and a lot of hammering and fitting, I succeeded. The result being a very beautyfull yet rather expensive piece of silver, as it took quite some time to make.

One of my aims when joining the Royal College of Art was to look into methods of production which would make batch production more accessible in smaller companies such as my own. I still find it intriguing to find ways of producing more of the same without loosing exclusivity and finish. (I might have inherited my fathers 'this-could-be-made-easier'-gene; more on that subject some other time)

Back to the Kiss; in Danish we call this meringue a 'kiss-cake'.

I was overwhelmed with the attention this little piece of silver got and it spurred me on to work on a less expensive version, that would make it possible for more people to bring their meringue unharmed to work every day, or simply add some more beauty to our world.

Meringue box, Sterling silver, Lone Løvschal, photo: James Bates

And now it's here......more crisp than the one-off, however just as mouthwatering. Still with a lot of time spend on the finish and never a mass produced product, but affordable and ready to eat.