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Almond Meringues
Put the whites of a few eggs in a bowl and whisk to a stiff froth, adding some powdered sugar; continue to whisk vigorously and mix in as much of sweet almonds finely-chopped and blanched as there was sugar used. Drop the mixture onto pieces of thin paper, and put them to dry in a drying-closet or slow oven with the door open. Take them out, carefully remove the paper either by dampening or easing with a knife, and arrange on a dish, serving them quite cold and dry.
A skeleton recipe of the kind professional kitchens wrote for cooks who already knew the ratio. The proportions have to be supplied from practice, and the drying-closet has to be translated into an oven setting.
- Supply the missing ratio"A few eggs" and "some powdered sugar" assume you know the standard: about 2 oz of sugar per egg white for a stiff meringue. Four whites and 8 oz of sugar is a workable batch, which then takes an equal weight of almonds -- 8 oz, or a little under 2 cups chopped.
- Blanch before you chopThe original says "finely-chopped and blanched," but the order is the reverse: pour boiling water over the almonds, slip off the skins, dry them thoroughly, then chop. Damp almonds will deflate the whites.
- Add the sugar graduallyWhisk the whites to soft peaks first, then add the sugar a spoonful at a time so it dissolves. Adding it all at the froth stage risks a grainy meringue that weeps in the oven.
- The drying closet is a 200F ovenA hotel drying-closet held gentle, dry warmth. Use 200-225F with the door propped open on a wooden spoon so moisture escapes. Anything above 250F browns and cracks them, which is not what "dry" means here.
- TimingExpect 1 to 1 1/2 hours for small spoonfuls, longer for large ones, then leave them in the switched-off oven to cool completely. They are done when they lift cleanly and sound hollow, not when they look set.
- Paper"Thin paper" meant plain unglazed sheet paper, and the dampening trick was needed because meringue sticks fast to it. Parchment largely removes the need for that step; the meringues will usually release on their own once cold.
- Humid daysSugar and chopped almonds both draw water from the air. On a damp day the meringues stay tacky no matter how long they dry, so make them in dry weather and store them airtight the moment they cool.
- YieldFour whites give roughly 30 to 36 small meringues, depending on how large you drop them. They keep a week in a sealed tin.
Meringue built with ground or chopped nuts is far older than this book — the technique runs back through the almond-and-sugar confectionery of early modern Europe, where sweet almonds and refined sugar were among the luxuries a pastry cook was judged on. Oscar Tschirky's Cook Book (1896) collects hundreds of these compressed professional formulas, which is why quantities go unstated and a drying-closet is named as ordinary equipment. Small dry meringues of this sort would have suited a hotel kitchen: they kept for days in a tin, cost little beyond egg whites left over from other work, and could be sent out with ices or coffee at short notice. The insistence that they be served "quite cold and dry" is the whole point of the dish — a meringue that has softened is a failure no amount of arrangement on the dish can hide.