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Meringue III (Whites eggs cup powdered sugar) (II)
Whites 4 eggs 7/8 cup powdered sugar 2 tablespoons lemon juice Put whites of eggs and sugar in bowl, beat mixture until stiff enough to hold its shape, add lemon juice drop by drop, continuing the beating. It will take thirty minutes to beat mixture sufficiently stiff to hold its shape, but when baked it makes a most delicious meringue.
Meringues Glacees, or Kisses White 4 eggs 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar or 1 cup fine granulated 1/2 teaspoon vanilla Beat whites until stiff, add gradually two-thirds of sugar, and continue beating until mixture will hold its shape; feld in remaining sugar, and add flavoring. Shape with a spoon or pastry bag and tube on wet board covered with letter paper. Bake thirty minutes in very slow oven, remove from paper, and put together in pairs, or if intending to fill with whipped cream or ice cream remove soft part with spoon and place meringues in oven to dry.
Two related meringues sit side by side here: a lemon-sharpened topping meringue and the piped, dried shells sold as meringues glacées or kisses. Both hinge on beating the whites far past the point most cooks stop.
- The hinge: beat past soft peaksBoth versions demand a meringue stiff enough to hold a shape without slumping. The thirty minutes quoted assumes a hand whisk or rotary beater; a stand mixer will reach the same point in a fraction of that time. Under-beaten meringue weeps in the oven.
- 7/8 cupSeven-eighths of a cup is one cup less two tablespoons, about 100 g of powdered sugar. Odd fractions like this were normal when cooks measured by filling and levelling a standard cup.
- Powdered sugar has changedPeriod "powdered sugar" meant sugar ground finer than granulated, with nothing added. Modern confectioners' sugar carries 3 to 5 percent cornstarch, which can leave a faint chalkiness. Superfine or caster sugar is the closer match, and the second recipe already offers fine granulated as an alternative.
- Lemon juice, drop by dropThe acid helps stabilise the foam. It is added a drop at a time at the end so that the extra liquid does not knock the air out of whites already beaten stiff.
- "Very slow oven"Period tables generally put this at around 250F, some as low as 200F. At that heat the kisses dry rather than brown; thirty minutes suits small shapes, while larger shells may need considerably longer.
- Letter paperUse parchment. The wet board underneath is usually explained as keeping the paper flat and easing release of the finished shells, a job parchment now does on its own.
- Folding in the last sugarThe final third goes in by folding, not beating, so the foam keeps its volume. Work in three or four additions with a spatula and stop as soon as no streaks show.
- Hollowing the shellsScooping the soft interior out and returning the shells to the oven to dry is the method the recipe gives for anything to be filled with whipped cream or ice cream. Filled shells soften as they stand, so assemble shortly before serving.
- YieldFour whites give enough topping for one 9-inch pie, or roughly 18 to 24 kisses, that is 9 to 12 filled pairs, depending on how large you pipe them.