Meringue
2 eggs (whites), Pinch of salt, 4 level tablespoonfuls of sugar, 1 teaspoonful of vanilla.
Add salt to eggs and beat in a large, shallow dish with fork or egg-whip until stiff and flaky and dish can be turned upside down. Beat in the sugar slowly, then the vanilla, and beat until the dish can be turned upside down.
A soft meringue of the kind meant to be spread over a pie and browned, not piped into dry shells. The original assumes you know what to do with it once it is beaten.
- It is a topping, not a finished dishWith only two tablespoons of sugar per white this is a soft meringue, too loose to hold its shape as a dried cookie. Spread it over a filled pie and bake it; it is not intended to be eaten as beaten.
- Bake itA meringue topping needs 12 to 15 minutes at 350F to set and colour, or 5 to 8 minutes at 400F for a darker, softer result. Uncooked beaten whites carry the usual raw-egg risk and the recipe gives no cooking step at all.
- YieldTwo whites will generally cover an 8-inch pie. For a 9-inch pie, or if you want the high domed top of a diner lemon meringue, use three or four whites and keep the recipe's ratio of two level tablespoons of sugar to each white.
- The shallow dishThe wide, shallow bowl and fork are pre-mixer technique: a broad surface lets a hand whisk drag more air in. A stand mixer with the whisk works in a deep bowl, but keep everything free of grease and yolk or the whites will not climb.
- Add the sugar slowlyThis is the hinge. Sugar dumped in at once deflates the foam and weeps syrup later; a spoonful at a time, with the beater running, dissolves it into the protein. Rub a little between your fingers before you stop, and stop when it feels smooth rather than gritty.
- Cream of tartarNot in the original, but a pinch (commonly an eighth of a teaspoon per white) stabilises the foam against over-beating and makes the meringue less likely to collapse or bead in the oven.
- Sealing the edgeSpread the meringue so it touches the pastry rim all the way round. A topping that does not anchor to the crust shrinks back and slides as it cools.
- Spread it warmMeringue put on a hot or warm filling cooks from underneath and is less prone to the layer of syrup that gathers between topping and pie. A cold filling makes weeping more likely.
Choice Recipes was one of the small promotional books issued by Walter Baker & Co. of Dorchester, Massachusetts, the long-established American chocolate firm, and its purpose was to put its cocoa and chocolate into as many domestic dishes as possible. A plain meringue earns a place in such a book because it is the standard finish for the chocolate cream pies and puddings that fill the surrounding pages, and the whites are what remain once the yolks have gone into a custard. The word itself is French and enters printed cookery in the late seventeenth century; the popular story tracing it to the Swiss town of Meiringen is traditional rather than documented. What dates this particular version is the equipment, a fork or wire egg-whip and a shallow dish, and the test the writer trusts instead of a timer, turning the dish upside down.