Ingredients

Serves 8

Meringues:
4 egg whites
225gr caster sugar

Cream:
300ml thickened cream
1 tbsp icing sugar
1 tbsp rosewater (leave this out if you don’t like the flavour - use vanilla extract instead)
1 tiny drop rose pink food colouring

Pink sugar:
½ cup caster sugar
Tiny drop rose pink food colouring (paste works better for this)

6-8 small pink roses (make sure they are unsprayed), or use whole dried rosebuds

Method

Line two baking trays with baking paper. Heat the oven to 120°C. Mark a 20cm circle (on the wrong side of the paper) on one baking tray.

Beat the room temperature egg whites in a glass or metal bowl until soft peaks form. Add sugar, one tablespoon at a time, until sugar is dissolved and mixture is smooth and glossy.

Spread a small amount of meringue onto the 20cm circle until the circle is about 1cm thick. On the other baking tray, place small mounds (two dessertspoons) of the remaining meringue about 3cm apart. You should get between 25 and 30 meringues. Cook for about 1½ hours or until meringues are crisp. Turn off the oven and leave to cool.

Beat the cream, icing sugar, food colouring and rosewater together until soft peaks form.

Place large meringue disc on a pretty serving plate. Place a dab of cream on the bottom of the small meringues and begin layering. Blob cream as necessary to fill gaps and stick the meringues together as you layer. Repeat layering, making smaller layers as you go to form a cone shape. Finish with a single meringue.

Pull the petals from the fresh roses and scatter over the meringues.  Alternatively, scatter the whole dried rosebuds over the cake. Tuck whole fresh roses around the base of the cake.

Work the food colouring though the sugar until evenly distributed. Scatter generously over the meringue stack.