Hi Monet, can you tell us a little bit about your setup? A few things Zoë is wondering about — did you use a stand mixer or hand mixer? If you used a hand mixer, it may not have been powerful enough. Another thing to consider is the material of the bowl you used. It won’t work in plastic. Let us know what you were using as we’d love to help you troubleshoot!

Hi Deanne, we’re so glad you enjoyed the recipe! If you had some meringue left over, the issue is likely that there wasn’t enough of a meringue foundation for it to hold the spikes. Zoë has stored hers both covered and uncovered, it’s just that with covered you would need to have a dome that doesn’t touch the meringue (sounds like you did). You can store it uncovered for some time, but then would need to cover it because of the pastry cream. I hope this helps for next time!

I made this smashing cake yesterday and it came out picture perfect. Two comments: (1) recipe made a full bowl of Swiss meringue and after applying a very heavy coat there was still half a bowl of remaining meringue and all was needed for the spikes. Recipe said reserve 1 cup of meringue for the spikes which surely isn’t enough to create all the spikes.
(2) recipe in the cookbook said to store in the refrigerator, covered, for up to 2 days. Above you state to store uncovered. I stored the cake overnight in a large covered cake carrier in the refrigerator
and transported it by car for 90 minutes. Upon arrival a third of the meringue on side of cake had detached…am thinking a combo of storing cake covered, not allowing meringue to “cure” and contrasting temperature inside car, though it was stored in the rear of an SUV. Any insight is appreciated.