My Attempts At Baking And Other Such Oven Usage

In the oven right now I have what should hopefully become a lovely tray baked meringue, upon which I have created some whipped cream, toasted nuts and fruit topping. However, it should be noted that since I do not have an electric mixer I was forced to whip the egg white mixture by hand.

Firstly, that is tiring as FUCK and I am pretty sure that I have egg/sugar goob in my eyebrow that I'm hesitant to remove for fear that it will take part of my eyebrow with it. .

Secondly, I am 100% certain it wasn't beaten enough and therefore this monstrosity will become some warped, sweetened, baked egg goob. With whipped cream, toasted nuts and fruit topping.

Also, let me point out a detail to y'all. Toasting almonds: no problem. Toasting walnuts: no problem. Toasting coconut shavings: akin to asking someone to set your house on fire. After about 3 minutes of having them in the oven this awful, burnt, suntan-lotiony smell began emanating from the oven. I opened the oven door only to find that what was once a smattering of lovely little white coconut flakeys was now a charred, angry bed of black death. That smelled of the tropics.

Scratch the toasted coconut. Walnuts are a go though!

FIRST UPDATE: holy shit, it's the size of a house. Ok maybe not that big but it has spread to encompass the entire baking sheet. I don't know whether to eat it or to ride it across the Mushroom Kingdom.

SECOND UPDATE: HEY HEY NOW! It's nearing the end of it's bake time and it actually looks like a meringue!! A little golden baked :D

FINAL UPDATE: it's fucking delicious. A little darker on the bottom than I would've liked, but I blame that on my stupid oven and it's propensity to be irregularly warm. Small problem though: I now have a meringue the size of a fortress...and only myself to eat it. Mama's getting fat tonight!

FINAL FINAL UPDATE: ok, no. The darkened bottom ended up giving it an overtoasted marshmallow taste, and I put too much liquidy stuff on top and it was a large gooey mess. HOLY SWEETNESS BATMAN I got the diabetes from it. Still, a valiant effort and I will certainly try again, at a lower heat.