Meringue - meringue recipes in different versions

Meringue is one of those scary desserts. Although it is made with just a few ingredients, it is always unclear whether it will be beautiful and tasty. How to make a meringue that always comes out?

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Meringue is uneven. Some, when they think about it, have before their eyes a crunchy bottom garnished with cream and fruit. Others believe that real meringue is crisp on the outside and lingers softly on the inside. Still others, when thinking of meringue, imagine a lemon tart with soft white foam on top. Each of them is a meringue - a mixture of proteins and sugar with a small amount of potato flour and sometimes vinegar. Meringue usually comes out, but it doesn't always work out the way we imagined. If we love a little, then too dry bottom will annoy us. If we love the crispy-tender version, then any slightest dryness will be proof of the lack of meringue talent. However, there are ways that can help us get the dessert of our dreams.

What is Swiss meringue?

Swiss meringue is velvety, quite dense, perfect for making the base for cream cakes and decorating meringues. It is made by combining proteins with sugar and whipping them in a water bath. As a result, sugar gradually dissolves, and proteins are aerated. To prepare this meringue, it is worth preparing the proteins split the day before, but this is not necessary. It is assumed that for one serving of protein there are two servings of sugar.

Swiss meringue - recipe

Component:

• 4 protein
• 190 g sugar

Pour the whites into a bowl (they should not have yolk) and add sugar. Place the bowl in a saucepan filled with water. We begin to heat the water and beat the egg whites. Put a pastry thermometer into the egg whites. Bring the proteins to a temperature of 60 degrees and remove the bowl from the water bath. Then beat the mass with a mixer for 10 minutes. If we don't have a thermometer, nothing is lost. It is enough to observe the mass - when the sugar dissolves, you can remove the bowl from the water bath and beat the proteins with a mixer. Meringue is ready when the mass shines.

We can color the finished meringue, preferably with pasty dyes. Form a cake (if you want to make Pavlova meringue, meringue or meringue) and dry it in the oven at 100 degrees Celsius. Small meringues dry for about an hour, tops up to 2,5 hours. The temperature must be low so that the whole meringue crunches. We leave the finished meringues to cool in the oven with the door slightly ajar. Use immediately or place in a very tight container. Meringue - the best meteorologist - immediately captures moisture from the air and, becoming softer, heralds rain.

Italian meringue - simple, fast and delicious

Italian meringue is a meringue that we know very well under the name “Warm ice cream”. Such sweet white foam that can be ideally dipped in chocolate, poured into a waffle or squeezed onto a piece of cookie. It is found on every lemon grater, adorns modern donuts, squeezed into puffs. Its preparation is extremely simple. It doesn't require baking. All you need is sugar and proteins dissolved in water.

Italian cheese - recipe

Composition:

• ½ glass of water
• 1 cup of sugar
• 4 protein

Pour a glass of water into a saucepan and add 1 glass of sugar. We bring the temperature to 120 degrees Celsius. Pour 4 room temperature egg whites into a mixing bowl. Turn on the blender at medium speed and pour in the sugar syrup in a thin stream. We beat for about 10 minutes. Four proteins will make a lot of meringue. Definitely more than we need for one lemon tart. We can also dry this meringue at 100 degrees, but it often falls off and doesn't hold its shape.

However, there is a recipe for its use - baked alaska. Cover the bowl with cling film and put some softened ice cream - some make a mosaic, others lay out in layers, you can put in one taste. Put a biscuit or brownie on top. Freeze everything to create an ice dome. Carefully remove it from the bowl, remove the foil and cover the entire dessert with Italian meringue. Then, using the burner, we bake a little dessert. It looks phenomenal and tastes exceptionally good.

French meringue - what is it?

French meringue is the most popular meringue. It is made in the process of churning proteins and gradually adding sugar. Sometimes potato flour and vinegar appear in the mass, which are designed to stabilize the meringue and prevent it from falling. For French meringue, we use egg whites without traces of yolks.

French meringue - recipe

Composition: 

• 270 g proteins
• 250 g sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vinegar or lemon juice

Beat them at low speed first, then increase the speed. Add 1 teaspoon of sugar only when the whites begin to foam. Beat the foam with a mixer for 15-20 minutes. The finished foam is hard and shiny. If we want to color it, then only at the very end. From French meringue, you can cook meringue, cakes, Pavlova - whatever your heart desires. It is also dried for a long time at 100 degrees.

I have always used Joanna Matijek's recipe, which can be found in her book Sweet Herself. The perfect meringue recipe can also be found on her blog.

How to make meringue for a cake?

If you want to make a meringue cake, first beat the egg whites and sugar using one of the methods above. Then draw circles on baking paper and use a spoon to fill them with meringue mass. We can bake a cake that is smaller but has many floors, or a meringue where each successive floor is smaller than the previous one. Our only limit is our imagination.

The meringue tops are dried in the oven for at least 2,5 hours. If they are large and thick enough, then even longer. You should check them often and see what is going on at the bottom - is it wet or dry. Cool the meringue in the switched off oven with the door ajar.

Meringue Pavlova - recipe

Composition:

• 5 proteins
• 220 g sugar
• 1 tablespoon potato flour
• 1 tablespoon of vinegar
• 400 ml heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar
• 1 vanilla pod
• fruit for decoration

The essence of meringue desserts is Pavlovian meringue. Make French meringue with 5 egg whites, 220 g sugar, 1 tablespoon potato flour and 1 tablespoon vinegar. Form a mound out of it, using a spoon to lift the walls. Dry for about 2-3 hours. Whip 400 ml of heavy cream, 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar and vanilla pods. We lay out the meringue. Decorate with fruits - strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and blueberries are probably the best, but we should not limit ourselves. We serve immediately. However, if we don't want to use cream but want a creamier and more stable cream, we can try the mascarpone version. This is a cream that goes with everything: cake, meringue, donuts and even sandwiches. It is enough to whip the foam with 250 ml of cold heavy cream with 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar. At the end, beat, add 250 g of cold mascarpone cheese and wait for the ingredients to combine. Vanillin or lemon zest can be added to this mass.

Why does meringue fall off, crack or leak?

In the last paragraphs, I wrote that cooking meringue is not a space flight and everyone can handle it. This is how it happens if you follow the recipe - add sugar slowly, start adding only when the proteins are slightly knocked down, use the proteins without traces of yolk, add the dye to the paste, let the meringues dry for a long time, cool them in a cooling oven. However, there are problems that we may encounter when preparing it, and usually they arise due to inaccurate adherence to the recipe.

What can happen? Sometimes beautiful meringue falls off when it cools. Why is this happening and what to do so that the meringue does not fall off? This is because it didn't dry out enough in the oven and changed the temperature too quickly. Remember that meringue requires our patience. If we are drying large meringue countertops, we cannot open the oven before two hours from the start of the whole process. We also cool the meringue in the oven.

Meringue cracks and this is not a problem - usually only large pancakes break, which we still coat with cream and fruits or nuts. Meringue can crack if placed in a cold oven or chilled too quickly. So the solution for this is to put the meringue in a preheated oven and chill it for a long time.

Why is the meringue flowing? There are many reasons. Firstly, it can spread unevenly and make a hole where there is not enough foam. Secondly, adding dye, we could overdo it with its amount, especially if it was a liquid dye. Therefore, it is better to add the dye in meringue in the form of a paste that does not thin the mass. Thirdly, Meringues can leak from not very well whipped cream, very juicy fruit or high temperature. Meringue is saturated with moisture, and then simply dissolves. That is why we serve it immediately after preparation or store it in the refrigerator, trying to use not very juicy fruits (and if juicy, for example, strawberries, then add them whole).

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