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Meringue Paste
This in various forms has had to be mentioned often in these columns. It is always white of egg and sugar, but is sometimes soft meringue as on lemon pies, and sometimes nearly all sugar as in cake icing and "kisses." Meringues a la Creme.
These are made in two different ways, the first makes perhaps the finest and smoothest glazed meringue resembling frosted glass, but the paste must be used immediately as it soon becomes too thin to keep shape. 1 pound of powdered sugar. 10 whites of eggs. 1 or 2 teaspoonfuls of flavoring extract.
Have everything cold and dry to begin with. Whip the white of eggs in a deep bowl with a whisk made of a bunch of wires, till it will not fall out when turned upside down, add the sugar and flavoring all at once and stir it in just enough to mix it well and no more. Have ready some strips of writing paper two inches wide and pieces of boards (not pine) to bake the meringues on. Place spoonfuls eggshaped on the strips of paper, not too close, smooth them with a knife, sift powdered sugar all over them, shake off the surplus, place the strips on the boards and dry-bake them with the oven door partly open. They need to bake nearly or quite half an hour. They can be lifted off the paper when cold. The boards prevent a crust forming on the bottom and the soft remainder inside can be scooped out. Fill as directed in the next receipt.
A trade-shop meringue formula written for a coal range with a cracked door. The proportions are sound; the equipment and the oven instruction need translating.
- The hinge: fold, do not beatOnce the sugar goes in, the instruction to stir "just enough to mix it well and no more" carries the whole recipe. Overworking deflates the foam; the original warns the paste must be used immediately because it soon becomes too thin to keep shape. Note that it is spooned into egg shapes and smoothed with a knife, not piped.
- Quantities1 pound of powdered sugar is roughly 4 cups; 10 egg whites is about 300 g, or some 1¼ cups. That works out at about 1½ parts sugar to 1 part white by weight.
- Powdered sugar then and nowPeriod powdered sugar was simply granulated sugar ground fine. Modern confectioners' sugar carries about 3 percent cornstarch, which slightly dulls the "frosted glass" gloss but makes the shells more forgiving. Superfine (caster) sugar gives the closer match to the original finish.
- Cold whitesThe direction to have everything cold and dry may reflect a kitchen with no refrigeration and a fear of the foam breaking in the heat, though the recipe does not say. Whites at room temperature whip faster and to greater volume; a pinch of cream of tartar or a scrupulously clean copper bowl does more for stability than chilling.
- Oven for dry-bakingThe recipe gives no temperature, only to dry-bake with the door partly open so moisture escapes and the sugar never colors; in a modern oven something around 200-225F with the door propped answers to that. At so low a heat the shells may want longer than the half hour the original allows, and can be left in the switched-off oven to finish drying.
- Paper and boardsWriting paper on unlined wood kept a crust from forming on the bottoms, as the original explains. Parchment on a stacked pair of baking sheets, or a single insulated sheet, does the same job. The warning against pine is presumably about resin scenting the sugar, though the recipe does not say why.
- Scooping the shellsThe soft interior is removed on purpose: these are hollow cases for whipped cream, which is what the "next receipt" supplies. Scoop while barely warm, then dry the shells a few more minutes if they feel tacky inside.
- YieldSpoonfuls of this size give roughly 30 to 36 shells, or 15 to 18 filled and paired meringues.
The book is drawn from a periodical, and this entry reads like it: the author notes the subject "has had to be mentioned often in these columns" and treats soft pie meringue, cake icing and "kisses" as variations on one formula of white of egg and sugar. Meringue itself is generally traced either to the Swiss town of Meiringen or to a pastry cook named Gasparini working there, both traditional attributions rather than documented ones. Meringues o a working bell bakery, it is often said, because they used up the whites left from custards, curds and egg-yolk-rich doughs, an economy that would have mattered when a shop cracked eggs by the hundred. The insistence on paper strips, non-resinous boards and a propped oven door is the practical residue of baking sugar foam in a range built for bread.