You can go out and buy meringues. For that matter, you can also undergo surgery for no good reason. In both cases, the question is: why punish yourself? However, if you really love having a dry, sugary powder explode in your mouth, and enjoy having to pick up crumbs from all over your clothes as well as the floor, then do not let me stop you - go ahead and buy the commercial variety.
If, on the other hand, you are seeking to eat a meringue where the middle remains slightly chewy and it is to this centre that the melt-in-your-mouth crumbs adhere as you bite it - in short, if you are looking to make the best meringues anyone will taste, then do yourself and your family a favour, and make these.
It is always essential to attain the right texture in food; there is a reason the food journals pack their readings full of words describing mouth sensations, and frankly, I'm not sure we ever really outgrow our oral fixations. But then again, I'm not sure I really see any point in outgrowing them either.
However, I digress. There is more than one secret to making meringues, but they are all fairly commonsensical, once you think about it. In order of precedence, they are:
1. No fat
The "no fat" rule includes every implement which touches the egg whites, and does not exclude your hands; it also includes the egg yolk itself, which, if it breaks, will leak fat into the whites, thereby wasting your time, effort and energy, since the meringues will then resemble hard, sweet, cooked egg white. Yuck!
The bowl in which you beat up the whites is not exempt - apparently plastic bowls are particularly suspect in that they can remain coated in a very thin layer of oil. Since I am fortunate enough to use a stainless steel bowl, I have not been able to independently verify the accuracy of this, at the same time, I always wash both bowl and egg whisk in very hot, very soapy water and then dry it thoroughly before making meringues.
One of the worst mistakes anyone can make when cracking, for instance, six eggs, one after the other, is to plonk them all into one bowl and then when the yolk of egg six (it is always egg six and never egg one, for instance) breaks upon cracking - well, you have to make omlettes instead or rinse all the eggs down the sink, a most wasteful and irritating process. Hence, a superior way is to crack each egg into a specific bowl made for this purpose, and then, only once the yolk has been successfully separated from the white, do you add the white to the large bowl of egg whites. This my grandmother taught me to do, and it has stood the test of time.
A small bowl, thrown and decoeated by me, designed specifically for egg-cracking purposes - note the lip for pouring
If you don't want to imitate Nigella Lawson, and simply hoik the egg yolk out of the dish with your fingers, then you can use an egg separator instead:
Separating the yolk from the egg
Either way, separate yolks from whites, carefully, and add to the whites a-gathering in your squeaky clean mixing bowl.
2. Castor sugar
The bubbles beaten into egg whites are relatively fragile creatures, robust enough to keep fine granules of sugar in suspension long enough until the meringue is cooked, but not sturdy enough to maintain larger granules in suspension. At the least, they fall to the bottom, and the sugar then caramelises there, at most, they can deflate the entire construction. Hence, you cannot use ordinary sugar here, unless you grind it down smaller. I'm never without castor sugar in my pantry; it is needed in so much that I bake.
3. Room temperature eggs
The only difference between a sweet, hard, cooked egg white and meringues is the fact that the air beaten into the egg whites serves to keep the sugar in suspension for long enough that the air doesn't deflate. Hence, the more air that is beaten in, the better. You do not want to over-beat the egg whites, as this makes the meringues tough; beating if too zealously applied can even reverse the effect entirely. More voluminous egg white is generated by room temperature eggs. If your eggs are straight out the fridge, place them in a luke-warm water bath until they are at the right temperature.
4. Cornstarch and Vinegar or Lemon
Some say the addition of cornstarch and vinegar serve to stabilise the meringue. All I know is that Nigella advocates it to ensure a chewy centre - not toffe-like in consistency, just with a bit of a 'bite' as the foodies will have it.
5. Exact ratios
Well, exact enough. It all really depends on the size of your egg, really, which don't come in exact sizes. Hence, I see that while some advocate 50g, others say you should use 55g and yet others indicate that 60g of caster/castor sugar should be used per egg white (roughly two ounces). I find that 60g with the extra large eggs we get works just fine, but can adjust downwards, if necessary. Also, if you are wanting a stiffer meringue mixture, which you can pipe through a star-shaped nozzle to make shapes, such as the letters shaped in the first initials of each and every child in my son's birthday at pre-school (call me a doting mother and be done with it), then you would add a bit more castor sugar to the mixture to ensure it is a bit stiffer.
Faran with a meringue F for his Fifth birthday
Well, OK, I had to do it again, didn't I - this time for Conall's 6th birthday:
Of course, by this time I had worked out to make the meringue a bit stiffer by adding more sugar, I coloured the meringues too, and used a star nozzle and then put sprinkles and so on on top of the meringue (given the low temperatures at which you cook meringues, you can add sprinkles with impunity - well, as long as you don't weigh down the structure too much, I guess, in which case the results may be interesting).
I also traced out the letters for the initials, to ensure similar sizes
But I think we are almost over-reaching ourselves here.
Here is the - (drum rolls ...)
Perfect Meringue Recipe:
360 g castor sugar
6 egg whites
Or 60g per one egg white - I find the six is probably the maximum I can make in my Kenwood.
Optional:
1 teaspoon cornflour/maizena
½ teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla flavouring
½ teaspoon or a few drops of colouring - preferably gel food colouring
Pre-heat oven to 100 ºC, 200 ºF gas mark ¼
Line biscuit/cookie trays with non-stick baking parchment
Beat egg whites until fluffy. Add castor sugar in small increments, to ensure stability of construction. Continue until ⅔ of the sugar is fully incorporated, then fold in the rest of the sugar. At this stage, you can sprinkle the cornflour and vinegar on the top, and fold it into the mixture, together with the rest of the optional ingredients - the flavourant and colours. Work quickly and deftly, making sure you never add more than the mixture can bear.
The easiest way to make meringues is simply to use two teaspoons and grab a dollop of mixture with one and plop it off onto the baking parchment with the other. However, as demonstrated above, you can also pipe it through large bags with star or round nozzles on the end to make various shapes, though for this, I'd make sure the meringue mixture is stiffer rather than softer, by the addition of a little - a very little sugar.
Bake for approximately one hour until thoroughly dried out. I have managed to bake them in a gas oven, though between having to hover in the kitchen to keep switching the oven back on when it went out and propping the door open when it got too hot, it was not the most fun in the world. Perseverance, however, makes all possible.
Both my aunt Sylvia and even my mother, who is remarkably discerning, have independent of one another verified these are the best meringues they have ever tasted - so what are you waiting for?
Oh - one final thing - if you want that slight chewiness, then do bake either on the morning of, or at most the night before. If you keep the meringues in a truly very air-tight contain they may retain their softness and their 'bite', but generally speaking, I find that meringues tend to go stale and dry if left to, well, dry out over time. So while some may advocate that you can make them before-hand, citing time-saving as an argument, why, to them I say that, frankly, I'd rather squander my time and make something truly heavenly.
Once you have made your meringues, they also are perfect for a dessert. May I recommend you make an Eton Mess, consisting of meringue, whipped cream and either strawberries or crushed chocolate balls? Sounds messy, but tastes divine - go judge for yourself:
Crushed Whispers Set Amidst an Eton Mess
If, on the other hand, you are seeking to eat a meringue where the middle remains slightly chewy and it is to this centre that the melt-in-your-mouth crumbs adhere as you bite it - in short, if you are looking to make the best meringues anyone will taste, then do yourself and your family a favour, and make these.
It is always essential to attain the right texture in food; there is a reason the food journals pack their readings full of words describing mouth sensations, and frankly, I'm not sure we ever really outgrow our oral fixations. But then again, I'm not sure I really see any point in outgrowing them either.
However, I digress. There is more than one secret to making meringues, but they are all fairly commonsensical, once you think about it. In order of precedence, they are:
1. No fat
The "no fat" rule includes every implement which touches the egg whites, and does not exclude your hands; it also includes the egg yolk itself, which, if it breaks, will leak fat into the whites, thereby wasting your time, effort and energy, since the meringues will then resemble hard, sweet, cooked egg white. Yuck!
The bowl in which you beat up the whites is not exempt - apparently plastic bowls are particularly suspect in that they can remain coated in a very thin layer of oil. Since I am fortunate enough to use a stainless steel bowl, I have not been able to independently verify the accuracy of this, at the same time, I always wash both bowl and egg whisk in very hot, very soapy water and then dry it thoroughly before making meringues.
One of the worst mistakes anyone can make when cracking, for instance, six eggs, one after the other, is to plonk them all into one bowl and then when the yolk of egg six (it is always egg six and never egg one, for instance) breaks upon cracking - well, you have to make omlettes instead or rinse all the eggs down the sink, a most wasteful and irritating process. Hence, a superior way is to crack each egg into a specific bowl made for this purpose, and then, only once the yolk has been successfully separated from the white, do you add the white to the large bowl of egg whites. This my grandmother taught me to do, and it has stood the test of time.
A small bowl, thrown and decoeated by me, designed specifically for egg-cracking purposes - note the lip for pouring
If you don't want to imitate Nigella Lawson, and simply hoik the egg yolk out of the dish with your fingers, then you can use an egg separator instead:
Separating the yolk from the egg
Either way, separate yolks from whites, carefully, and add to the whites a-gathering in your squeaky clean mixing bowl.
2. Castor sugar
The bubbles beaten into egg whites are relatively fragile creatures, robust enough to keep fine granules of sugar in suspension long enough until the meringue is cooked, but not sturdy enough to maintain larger granules in suspension. At the least, they fall to the bottom, and the sugar then caramelises there, at most, they can deflate the entire construction. Hence, you cannot use ordinary sugar here, unless you grind it down smaller. I'm never without castor sugar in my pantry; it is needed in so much that I bake.
3. Room temperature eggs
The only difference between a sweet, hard, cooked egg white and meringues is the fact that the air beaten into the egg whites serves to keep the sugar in suspension for long enough that the air doesn't deflate. Hence, the more air that is beaten in, the better. You do not want to over-beat the egg whites, as this makes the meringues tough; beating if too zealously applied can even reverse the effect entirely. More voluminous egg white is generated by room temperature eggs. If your eggs are straight out the fridge, place them in a luke-warm water bath until they are at the right temperature.
4. Cornstarch and Vinegar or Lemon
Some say the addition of cornstarch and vinegar serve to stabilise the meringue. All I know is that Nigella advocates it to ensure a chewy centre - not toffe-like in consistency, just with a bit of a 'bite' as the foodies will have it.
5. Exact ratios
Well, exact enough. It all really depends on the size of your egg, really, which don't come in exact sizes. Hence, I see that while some advocate 50g, others say you should use 55g and yet others indicate that 60g of caster/castor sugar should be used per egg white (roughly two ounces). I find that 60g with the extra large eggs we get works just fine, but can adjust downwards, if necessary. Also, if you are wanting a stiffer meringue mixture, which you can pipe through a star-shaped nozzle to make shapes, such as the letters shaped in the first initials of each and every child in my son's birthday at pre-school (call me a doting mother and be done with it), then you would add a bit more castor sugar to the mixture to ensure it is a bit stiffer.
Faran with a meringue F for his Fifth birthday
Well, OK, I had to do it again, didn't I - this time for Conall's 6th birthday:
Of course, by this time I had worked out to make the meringue a bit stiffer by adding more sugar, I coloured the meringues too, and used a star nozzle and then put sprinkles and so on on top of the meringue (given the low temperatures at which you cook meringues, you can add sprinkles with impunity - well, as long as you don't weigh down the structure too much, I guess, in which case the results may be interesting).
I also traced out the letters for the initials, to ensure similar sizes
But I think we are almost over-reaching ourselves here.
Here is the - (drum rolls ...)
Perfect Meringue Recipe:
360 g castor sugar
6 egg whites
Or 60g per one egg white - I find the six is probably the maximum I can make in my Kenwood.
Optional:
1 teaspoon cornflour/maizena
½ teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla flavouring
½ teaspoon or a few drops of colouring - preferably gel food colouring
Pre-heat oven to 100 ºC, 200 ºF gas mark ¼
Line biscuit/cookie trays with non-stick baking parchment
Beat egg whites until fluffy. Add castor sugar in small increments, to ensure stability of construction. Continue until ⅔ of the sugar is fully incorporated, then fold in the rest of the sugar. At this stage, you can sprinkle the cornflour and vinegar on the top, and fold it into the mixture, together with the rest of the optional ingredients - the flavourant and colours. Work quickly and deftly, making sure you never add more than the mixture can bear.
The easiest way to make meringues is simply to use two teaspoons and grab a dollop of mixture with one and plop it off onto the baking parchment with the other. However, as demonstrated above, you can also pipe it through large bags with star or round nozzles on the end to make various shapes, though for this, I'd make sure the meringue mixture is stiffer rather than softer, by the addition of a little - a very little sugar.
Bake for approximately one hour until thoroughly dried out. I have managed to bake them in a gas oven, though between having to hover in the kitchen to keep switching the oven back on when it went out and propping the door open when it got too hot, it was not the most fun in the world. Perseverance, however, makes all possible.
Both my aunt Sylvia and even my mother, who is remarkably discerning, have independent of one another verified these are the best meringues they have ever tasted - so what are you waiting for?
Oh - one final thing - if you want that slight chewiness, then do bake either on the morning of, or at most the night before. If you keep the meringues in a truly very air-tight contain they may retain their softness and their 'bite', but generally speaking, I find that meringues tend to go stale and dry if left to, well, dry out over time. So while some may advocate that you can make them before-hand, citing time-saving as an argument, why, to them I say that, frankly, I'd rather squander my time and make something truly heavenly.
Once you have made your meringues, they also are perfect for a dessert. May I recommend you make an Eton Mess, consisting of meringue, whipped cream and either strawberries or crushed chocolate balls? Sounds messy, but tastes divine - go judge for yourself:
Crushed Whispers Set Amidst an Eton Mess
Kathy, this was so helpful - thanks you very much!! Ivan loves the letters!!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad my advice regarding egg 6 in particular turned out to be useful. Won't you send us some photos of how they turned out for me to post? Thanks.
ReplyDelete