Recently, I’ve been saying a lot about the trials and tribulations of making meringues. It occurred to me that while most of you know what a meringue is because you’ve probably eaten it before in something like a lemon meringue pie, some of you might not know a lot about making them. That’s why I wanted to give you an overview of the art of the meringue that you might find helpful.
Meringues can be scary. Many a cook, even a skilled cook, has come to grief in attempting the mighty meringue. So here are the issues:
- You need to mix meringue in a non-reactive metal bowl, in other words, a bowl that doesn’t chemically interact with your ingredients. Plastic is NOT good, as it can hold fatty particles in its pores. The exception is copper, which is reactive, but in the case of egg whites it’s a very good reaction; it’s actually the best type of material for whipping a meringue because it will whip your egg whites faster and more stable, unfortunately it’s also very expensive, one big bowl can cost as much as $100. Stainless steel is the best affordable bowl to whip meringue in; the bowl on a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer is stainless steel.
- Since meringue entails using only the egg whites of the egg, great care must be taken in separating yolk from white. I recommend holding the yolk (which contains fat) in your hand, and letting the white drop off. Any contact with any fat can destroy the meringue. Clean hands are a must, wash thoroughly with a disinfectant soap and hot water both before and after breaking your eggs.
- Egg whites are easily cooked, and premature cooking also destroys the meringue. Thus when combining the whites with other heated ingredients, particularly sugar, the utmost care must be taken in making sure that they are within the correct temperature range. Remember, even if hot sugar is at the correct temperature, and you turn off the burner, heat from the burner, or even from the bowl or pot itself, will continue to raise the temperature.
- An under-whipped meringue will be runny and lifeless, but an over-whipped meringue will be clumpy and grainy, so you need to get it just right. The best way to judge is by sticking the tip of your whisk in the meringue, if it’s firm enough to stand on up on it’s own with just the tip curving over, it’s done.
There are three basic types of meringue: French, Italian and Swiss. They all begin with raw egg whites that you’ll need to whip into a creamy mass that will become much larger than the liquid you started out with. But that’s where the similarities end. So for now, let us start with the French, the simplest of the trio.
French Meringue: You start out whipping the egg whites until they become frothy, at that point slowly add in sugar as it’s whipping, and continue to whip until it forms stiff peaks.
Because the egg whites are still raw, this type of meringue is meant to be baked after it’s prepared. It’s often piped onto a pan with a pastry bag and baked into a pastry shell, or a type of cookie that has a creamy, crunchy texture that should melt in your mouth when you eat it. If it tastes grainy or cottony, it means your eggs were likely whipped too long.
Stayed tuned for Part 2, where we’ll get into the Italian Meringue, which is cooked. That one’s a bit more complicated.
