Meringues
INGREDIENTS for 2 dozen. lb. of pounded sugar, the whites of four eggs. AVERAGE COST, with cream, 1s.
Whisk the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth and, with a wooden spoon, stir in quickly the pounded sugar; and have some boards thick enough to put in the oven to prevent the bottom of the meringues from acquiring too much colour. Cut some MERINGUES. strips of paper about 2 inches wide; place this paper on the board and drop a tablespoonful at a time of the mixture on the paper, taking care to let all the meringues be the same size. In dropping it from the spoon, give the mixture the form of an egg and keep the meringues about 2 inches apart from each other on the paper. Strew over them some sifted sugar and bake in a moderate oven for 1/2 hour. As soon as MILK. they begin to colour remove them from the oven; take each slip of paper by the two ends and turn it gently on the table and, with a small spoon, take out the soft part of each meringue. Spread some clean paper on the board, turn the meringues upside down and put them into the oven to harden and brown on the other side.
When required for table fill them with whipped cream, flavoured with liqueur or vanilla and sweetened with pounded sugar.
Join two of the meringues together and pile them high in the dish as shown in the annexed drawing. To vary their appearance finely-chopped almonds may be strewn over them before the sugar is sprinkled over; and they may be garnished with any bright-coloured preserve. Great expedition is necessary in making this sweet dish; as, if the meringues are not put into the oven as soon as the sugar and eggs are mixed, the former melts and the mixture would run on the paper instead of keeping its egg-shape. The sweeter the meringues are made the crisper will they be; but if there is not sufficient sugar mixed with them they will most likely be tough. They are sometimes coloured with cochineal and if kept well covered in a dry place will remain good for a month or six weeks.
TIME.-Altogether, hour.
SEASONABLE at any time.
A classic hollowed meringue shell, piped-by-spoon and filled with whipped cream. The text as printed has lost two of its numbers, so read the quantities with care.
- The missing quantityThe ingredient line reads "lb. of pounded sugar" with the fraction dropped in printing. Four egg whites take about 8 oz (½ lb, roughly 1 cup) of sugar at the usual 2 oz per white, and Beeton's own remark that more sugar means crisper meringues supports that reading. The baking time, given twice as "hour", was almost certainly ½ hour.
- Pounded sugarThis is sugar crushed fine in a mortar — caster (superfine) sugar is the modern equivalent. Granulated will not dissolve fully in the short time the recipe allows and leaves the meringue gritty and weeping.
- "A moderate oven"The book gives no temperatures; 'moderate' is conventionally read today as somewhere around 350F, hotter than modern meringue practice. The recipe compensates with insulating boards and by pulling the trays as soon as colour appears; the result is a browned, chewy-centred meringue rather than the pale, dry shell now expected. At 250-275F they dry through without colouring at all.
- Boards and paperThe thick boards are a heat shield between the oven floor and the meringues. Two baking sheets stacked together do the same job. The strips of paper become baking parchment; the point of the strips is that each one can be lifted and inverted independently.
- Scooping the centresTurning the half-baked meringues over and spooning out the soft interior is what makes the shell. Do it while they are still warm and pliable — cooled meringue shatters instead of hollowing.
- Work fastThe warning about expedition is real. Sugar folded into whisked whites begins drawing water out of the foam within minutes, and a mixture left standing spreads flat on the paper. Have trays lined and the oven at temperature before the whites go into the bowl.
- CochinealThe colouring named is carmine, made from scale insects. It is still sold as a food colour; note that it is not vegetarian, and synthetic red dyes are a common substitute.
- Yield and keepingTwo dozen shells, joined in pairs, gives twelve filled meringues. Unfilled shells genuinely do keep for weeks in a dry, airtight tin, as stated — fill them only at the last moment, since cream softens them within an hour or two.
Meringue arrives in English cookery from France in the eighteenth century, and the name is generally traced to a French borrowing of uncertain origin; the often-repeated story linking it to the Swiss town of Meiringen is traditional rather than documented. What makes Beeton's version distinctly Victorian is the finish: hollowed shells filled with sweetened whipped cream, joined in pairs and piled into a pyramid on the dish, with an engraving to show the arrangement. That emphasis on the built, architectural sweet — heaped high, garnished with bright preserve — belongs to the era of the dressed dessert table, when a pudding was expected to hold its shape as a centrepiece. The practical notes on sugar are sound baking chemistry arrived at by observation: sugar both stabilises the egg foam and, in sufficient quantity, produces the brittle glassy texture that distinguishes a meringue from a sweetened, leathery omelette.