In the kitchen

Sweet meringue icicles can be used to crown a cake or arrange around the sides as a pretty decoration. Adding a candy-coloured stripe is a simple, yet effective, technique to bring colour to the white casing. Once the meringue is ready, food colouring gel or paste is painted in stripes on the inside of a piping bag with a 1cm fluted nozzle. Gel works better than standard food colouring, as it is thicker, which makes it easier to paint. The meringue is then added and the piping bag held vertically to the baking sheet and gently squeezed, releasing pressure and pulling away to make a peak.