Whisk your egg whites (I hope you have an electric beater) until they form soft peaks. Add the cream of tartar and the salt. Then add the sugar, slowly, while continuing to whisk on high speed. Eventually it should look glossy and stiff.

Using a tall jug or glass to hold your piping bag (folded back so you can get the mixture into the pointy bit), scoop half of the mixture into it). Cut a point off the end. Not too big. Remember it’ll get bigger as you pipe.

Put a quarter of the rest of the mixture into another bowl and mix it with some strong red food colouring.

Save the rest of the meringue mixture for sticking the tops and bottoms of the mushroom meringues together. Keep this in an air tight container or another piping bag.

Lay out as many flat baking sheets as you possess, covered with non stick parchment or, (I keep telling you to buy these and I hope you have), even better, silpats.

Pipe the stems: holding the bag upright over the baking sheet, making sure it’s CLOSE to the paper, pipe a sort of cone shape. With a wet finger, slightly flatten the top, you need it flat so it fits onto the cap of the mushroom. Some of the stems will fall over so pipe plenty. You want them straight and upright.

Pipe the caps: this is easier. Pipe circular rounds until it’s about 2 cms high and 5 cms in diametre. Again smooth the top with a wet finger.

Then grate the liquorice candy on top of the cap.

For the toadstools, pipe the same cap in red.

Bake the caps and stems on a low heat oven (around 100-140ºC) for about an hour. Make sure they don't go brown.

For the toadstools, make a teensy hole at the end of your piping bag and pipe little white spots onto the top of the red caps. Put back in the oven and bake for 15 minutes.

Now the white caps: once they've cooled you will notice that the bottoms of many of the caps are 'dipped' just like real mushrooms.

Melt your chocolate. (30 second bursts in the microwave are the easiest way to do this. Do it for any longer than 30 seconds though and you'll have a disgusting burnt ball of chocolate).

Using a pastry brush, paint the dipped underside of your white mushroom caps with chocolate. Then stick the stem onto the underside. Leave to dry.

Handle with care or they'll break.

With the toadstools, using the leftover white meringue mixture, stick the stems the red caps. Cap side down, place back in the oven for 15 minutes until they are dry.