This one has intrigued me for years…when you’re a kid, it looks absolutely magical. Almost like Ice Cream Mountain, if you know that reference.
As an adult, 15-6: Royal Court Dessert just looks like a sugary headache. Turns out, it’s a little bit of both.
They’re right that this is a pretty quick and easy dessert to make. The hardest part (for me) was actually finding the meringues themselves. I guess I could have made them myself, but that is neither quick nor easy.
Looking at this list of ingredients, what do you think those colored dots in their cover picture are? I don’t think they’re oranges…what could they have been?
Ingredients. I chose to “replicate” their colored dots with some daisy sprinkles. I’m only using one banana since I don’t like bananas, but am compromising.
I could NOT find meringues in the 3 stores I went to that weekend, so I ended up ordering them online. The next weekend, I went to Trader Joe’s and THEY had them, so if you are looking for them and have a Trader Joe’s nearby, problem solved. Or maybe not, seems like it could be hit or miss whether they’re available.
I decided to put the vanilla extract into the cream first and then whip the cream. Seemed to be more efficient.
Draining the mandarins. This is just one of those little snack pack cups–easiest way to get a smaller amount of mandarins without a ton of extra oranges left over (just extra snack cups).
This is about a quarter of the suggested amount of whipped cream–it’s by far the biggest calorie bomb out of this whole thing, so I cut the amount significantly. There will still be a nice taste of cream (and enough to bind the thing together), but not much more than that.
Making the chocolate sauce. This too has been cut in half from the original amount suggested. Enough to get a nice drizzle and taste, but not swimming in chocolate.
I know, I know, I’m no fun anymore.
Sauce is up to a boil.
Slicing up the bananas–I learned from my adventure in 14-18: Fried Bananas and sliced them properly this time.
Pretty decent looking chocolate sauce.
Starting to layer the meringues. I’m not sure of relative meringue sizes, but I think these would be considered small? I’m going with that.
I chose to use a big Pyrex as the bowl for this, mostly so I can put a lid on it. Because even with all the cuts I’ve made to this, it’s STILL 4 servings.
I used half of my whipped cream to cover the first layer (mostly like brick mortar more than anything) and then added the fruit as the next layer on top of that.
Here’s the rest of the whipped cream–there’s not a lot, but it’s mostly keeping together so far.
Final layer of fruit and the last few meringues are plopped on top with hope and a prayer, since I’m out of whipped cream.
I’ll just have to count on this chocolate sauce to hold this all together. I think that looks like more than enough sauce, even with it being cut in half.
To finish it off, I sprinkled some daisies on top for color and fun.
Final look from the side–it’s kind of a mess and I wouldn’t call it “royal”, but it is a little magical and definitely a sugar bomb.
We ate half, froze it, and ate the other half a few days later–it was pretty tasty, but not something I’d eat on a regular basis.
Grade: A-
