Vinegar For Gooey Chocolate Stack

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Nigella's Gooey Chocolate Stack (from HOW TO BE A DOMESTIC GODDESS) is assembled from 3 chocolate meringue dics sandwiched together with a chocolate crème pâtissière. The meringue discs are fairly thin and slightly chewy in texture, so more like a fudgy cookie than a crisp meringue.

The meringue mixture includes some red wine vinegar. The acid in the vinegar helps to stablise (strengthen) the whisked egg whites. Nigella uses red wine vinegar as red wine has an affinity with chocolate, but the flavour of the red wine vinegar is not pronounced and cider vinegar (apple cider vinegar) could be used as an alternative. You could also use balsamic vinegar as an alternative as the caramel notes of balsamic vinegar also compliment chocolate and Nigella uses balsamic vinegar for her Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova.