Eton Mess Jars with Macerated Strawberries

Ingredients

• 400g ripe strawberries, hulled and quartered
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 1 lemon, zest of all and juice of half
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or extract)
• 250g mascarpone, fridge-cold
• 200ml double cream, fridge-cold
• 2 tbsp icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 6 shop-bought meringue nests (about 90g)

Method

1. Tip the quartered strawberries into a bowl with the caster sugar, the lemon zest and the juice of half the lemon. Stir gently and leave to macerate for at least 20 minutes, giving them one stir halfway. You're looking for the fruit to slump and release a glossy pink syrup at the bottom of the bowl — that lemon-spiked syrup is the whole point, it carries the flavour through every layer.
2. Taste a strawberry after 20 minutes. If it tastes flat, add another squeeze of lemon and a tiny pinch of salt — sweet fruit needs a whisper of acid and salt to stop it tasting one-note. Adjust now, before the layers go in.
3. While the strawberries macerate, make the cream. Put the mascarpone, double cream, icing sugar, vanilla and a pinch of salt into a large bowl and whisk — start slow so it doesn't splash, then build the speed. Stop the moment it holds soft, billowy peaks that just flop over at the tip. Mascarpone tightens fast; push past soft peaks and it goes grainy and split. Pull it early — you can always fold a touch more by hand. The pinch of salt is what stops the cream tasting flat and dairy-heavy; you won't taste salt, you'll taste vanilla, sharper.
4. Crush the meringue nests in your hands directly over a bowl. You want a mix of rubble and dust — big shards give crunch, fine dust melts into the cream and sweetens it. Don't pulverise to powder or you lose all the texture.
5. Build the jars. Spoon a tablespoon of strawberries with their syrup into the base of each jar, then a generous dollop of mascarpone cream, then a scatter of crushed meringue. Repeat: fruit, cream, meringue — finishing with cream and a final crown of meringue rubble. Drizzle any leftover pink syrup over the top so it bleeds down the sides of the cream.
6. Screw the lids on and chill until you head out. Transport upright in a cool bag. The meringue starts softening into the cream within an hour or two, which is exactly what you want by the time you eat them: half-crunchy, half-melted, properly messy. Don't assemble more than 4 hours ahead or the meringue dissolves completely.
7. At the picnic, pop the lids, lay a few strawberry slices on top of each, tear the mint leaves over the pink-streaked cream, and hand out the long spoons. Eat straight from the jar, digging deep to catch all three layers in one go.