Healthier Eton Mess & Chocolate Meringue Cookies

Continuing with the British food theme, (in honor of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Weekend) I've made the classic strawberry dessert ~ Eton Mess.  Every June 4th, this dessert is traditionally served at Eton College's annual cricket game against the students of Winchester College.  Since it's almost June 4th, I thought this would be the perfect summertime British dessert to make.  I decided to make it completely sugar-free by making my own sugar-free meringue cookies, but buying ready made meringue cookies would make this dessert a snap to make.

I found this simple, easy, healthy version of a really low fat Eton Mess recipe, over at the very cool blog ~ Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl.  Shauna is an Aussie writer, living in Scotland ~ go check out her blog, she is very funny & has good recipes.  She has also written a book by the same name.  I just got a copy from my library, it'll be my first book for summer reading.

I decided to make homemade sugar-free meringue cookies for the Eton Mess, instead of buying them.  I was up for the challenge, first time I've ever made them.  I followed a meringue recipe from over at Downton Abbey Cooks.  Since I made the sugar-free meringue version, I discovered you need to check the cookies for doneness at about 40 minutes, since they seem to cook much faster than the regular sugar ones.  I highly recommend the updated, healthy Eton Mess ~ it's such a simple & fun dessert to make & to eat. The low fat version is so good, I'll never make the fat laden recipe, there's no need to.  I just love it when a healthy version makes a high calorie one obsolete.

I decided that as long as I was making meringue, I might as well make a batch of chocolate meringue cookies, too.  I've bought them before, I figured I might as well learn how to make them.  I found this easy recipe over at What's Cooking America.  I loved them, but they were too dark chocolate tasting for J.  Funny, that was the very thing I enjoyed about them ~ that's OK, more for me!