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Meringue Sauce
3 egg whites. 1 1/2 cups sugar. 1 cup water. 1/2 cup sherry, or vanilla to taste.
Cook sirup until it threads, pour over stiffly-beaten whites; add flavoring.
This is an Italian meringue thinned into a pouring sauce — hot sugar syrup beaten into egg whites. The whole thing hinges on the syrup being hot enough when it goes in.
- "Until it threads"The thread stage is roughly 230–234F on a candy thermometer, when a drizzle from the spoon falls in a fine thread rather than drops. Modern practice takes the syrup a little further, to 240F (soft ball), which both stabilizes the meringue better and brings the whites closer to a safe temperature. Pour it in a thin steady stream down the side of the bowl with the mixer running, never all at once.
- Egg whitesThree whites is about 3 fl oz, or a scant 1/2 cup. Whipping stiff before the syrup goes in is essential; syrup hitting soft foam will sink and set into candy strings at the bottom of the bowl.
- Pasteurized whitesEven at 240F the syrup does not fully cook the whites. If the sauce is going to sit on the table or be served to anyone elderly, pregnant, or immune-compromised, use pasteurized whites — they whip a little more slowly but behave the same.
- SherryMrs. Wilson's book dates from around 1920, and "sherry" in an American kitchen of that period could mean anything from a dry wine to a sweetened cooking sherry. A dry oloroso or amontillado may work better against 1 1/2 cups of sugar. Half a cup is a lot of liquid for this quantity of meringue -- add it gradually at the end, off the heat, and stop when the sauce is as loose as you want it.
- Sugar to water ratio1 1/2 cups sugar to 1 cup water is a fairly thin syrup, and a good deal of water has to boil off before it reaches thread stage -- expect ten minutes or more of steady boiling. Do not stir it once it boils, and wash any crystals down the pan sides with a wet brush.
- Yield and servingA generous quantity of light, foamy sauce, good over steamed pudding, baked apples, gingerbread, or fruit. Best served the day it is made, as it is likely to weep and separate on standing.
Beating boiling sugar syrup into egg whites is the technique French pastry calls meringue italienne, and by the time Mrs. Wilson was writing for the Ladies' Home Journal it was well established in American domestic cooking as the base for boiled icing, seven-minute frosting, and sauces like this one. Loosened with wine, it sits near a family of frothed dessert sauces -- sabayon and zabaglione among them -- that let a cook turn eggs, sugar and a little drink into something that looked lavish on a small budget. The sherry is worth noting for its date: national Prohibition took effect in January 1920, and cookbooks of these years went on printing wine and spirit flavorings, with "or vanilla to taste" offered as an alternative.