White Chocolate, Blackberry and Lime Eton Mess

As I understand it, Eton mess was first served at Eton and was a messy dessert of strawberries (or bananas) and cream (or possibly ice cream). Later they started adding meringue to the dessert and thus the dessert we know today--meringue, strawberries, and lightly whipped cream--was born.

I love traditional Eton mess with strawberries, but I decided that after our dinner of onion tart and filet mignon I couldn't just serve plain old strawberries and cream. I decided to substitute blackberries for the strawberries. That's not really much of a change so I figured I'd add some white chocolate (it's so good with blackberries) to the whipped cream. But white chocolate crème d'or, no matter how delicious, mixed with blackberries is no longer Eton mess. So I whipped up some cream with a bit of lime juice and zest (both pretty and delicious) and folded the meringue pieces into that.



I served a scoop of lime and meringue cream and a scoop of white chocolate cream in a large tea cup with halved blackberries and extra meringues tossed on top. The tart, nearly bitter lime and the unsweetened cream made a nice counterpoint to the sweet meringues and white chocolate creme d'or. The blackberries were fresh and perfectly ripe and their tart sweetness added a lovely dimension to the Eton mess. Not too heavy and not too sweet. We served with a delicious, sweet, red dessert wine (not port); it was the perfect end to a perfect meal.