Misadventure #3 Brazo de Mercedes

This is one recipe that even The Mother couldn't accomplished.  One of my many kuyas are able to make it really well.  I'm not a huge fan of the dessert, it is a little too sweet for me but I get asked a lot about them.  Essentially it is a meringue Swiss roll.  As some of you know, it is not easy to form meringue once it is cooked.  The filling is a sweet custard filling, the best part it is made with condense milk :D.  The Husband calls it a gigantic marshmallow.  I adapted the recipe from No Special Affects.  It is a great recipe and the directions were easy enough to follow.  So I decided to try it but I cut the recipe in 1/2 to do that...big mistake. I generally really suck and reducing recipes just because, I tend to forget I actually altered the amount.  So either there is too much water or too sweet.  The custard ended up too sweet but I know what to do for next time.  I have tried Brazo before and it smelled like cooked eggs.  This time, the flavor was right on except for the sugar or condense milk in this case.  

Brazo de Mercedes

Ingredients - Meringue

10 Large Eggs Whites

1 Teaspoon of Cream of Tartar

200 Gr (1 Cup) of Sugar

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 250 and line a jelly roll with parchment paper and spray pam or anything lubricant like butter.  
2. Take the egg whites and cream of tarter and whip them with a mixer using the wire whisk. 
3. Once the egg whites achieved stiff peaks, add the sugar SLOWLY.  (If the sugar is just thrown in there, the peaks may fall.
4. Add the vanilla.
5. Pour the mixture into the prepared jelly roll and smooth out the top.
6. Bake for 30 minutes and than turn on the broiler and watch it for a couple of minutes to achieve the desired color.
7. Let it cool.
8. While that is cooling, take another sheet of parchment paper and dust with either powder sugar or corn starch.  * I would use corn starch, I used powder sugar and it make it sweeter.
9. Flip the meringue over and remove the parchment paper, the lighter side should be up.
10. Spread the filling and roll the edges up until it creates a Swiss roll.

Filling

10 Egg yolks

397 Grs (1 can or 1 1/4 cup) of Condense milk

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla

Directions

1. If you have a double boiler or just a sauce pan, fill it up 1/2 way with water and bring to a boil.
2. While that is happening, take either the second part of the double boiler or a heat resistant bowl and add the eggs, condense milk, and vanilla.
3. Mix well
4. Place on top of the boiling water and continue to mix until it has thicken and because a bright yellow in color.
5. Let it cool .
6. Spread over the prepared meringue.

What I need to do differently

1. Don't 1/2 the recipe or pay close attention to the amounts.
2. I need to actually smooth out the top of the meringue
3. What the meringue while it cooks to make it sure it doesn't brown too much.
4. Use corn starch instead of powder sugar.  

  Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to make this again.