At one of my jobs they like to decorate their offices with Christmas decorations. This is mainly because there’s a decorating competition at ACP Media and prizes to be won. Anyway, my contribution was these meringue wreaths from Alessandra Zecchini and Arantxa Zecchini Dowling’s book Party Food for Girls.

She says the recipe contains lots of sugar as the meringues are designed to be long-lasting Xmas decorations. They will keep for weeks. I haven’t done much icing in my time, so mine certainly don’t look as good as the ones in the book, but dressed with ribbon they do look very Christmassy.

1 tsp cornflour
340g icing sugar
2 egg whites
pinch salt
1 tsp lemon juice

Line 2 baking trays with baking paper. Using a glass, trace circles on the paper with a marker, then turn the paper over.

Sift cornflour and icing sugar and set aside.

Beat egg whites in a bowl with an electric beater till soft peaks form. Keep beating, add lemon juice and sugar, one spoonful at a time, until all the sugar is well mixed.

Spoon mixture into a piping bag and pipe hollow circles onto the baking paper.

Bake for around 4 hours, opening the oven every half hour for a few minutes to make sure no humidity develops. Let the meringues cool down overnight in the open oven.

Attach colourful ribbons and hang them around your house or on your Xmas tree, or in my case, around the office desks!

Makes 18-20 wreaths