Home › The Waldorf Kitchen › Cream Meringues
Cream Meringues
Take the whites of six eggs and whip them to a white froth, and until they are very light and dry; then mix in rapidly but gently one-half pound of caster-sugar. Take some paraffine-paper and spread it over three boards about nine by twelve inches in size; then, with a spoon, take the mixture out and drop it into oblong shapes on the paper to the number of about twelve on each piece. Place them in a warm closet to dry for two hours; then take them from the board, and remove the soft part with a spoon. Meanwhile take one breakfast cupful of cream, and season it with a little vanilla or one teaspoonful of wine, and one tablespoonful of caster-sugar. Whip it into a stiff froth, then fill the shells with it and join them together. The meringues must not be exposed to any great heat, or they will spoil.
A plain meringue shell filled with sweetened whipped cream, written for a kitchen with a warm cupboard rather than a thermostat. Two things decide the outcome: how dry the shells get, and how dry the room is.
- Caster sugarSuperfine sugar, sold as such or made by pulsing granulated sugar briefly in a food processor. Half a pound is about 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons, which works out to roughly 38 g per white — a slightly lean meringue that dries crisp but is less stable than the modern 50 g per white. Add it in a slow stream once the whites hold soft peaks, not all at once, or it will deflate them.
- Paraffine-paperWaxed paper. Use parchment or a silicone mat instead; wax paper is fine for cold work but has no advantage here and can stick.
- "A warm closet"The airing cupboard or plate warmer of a period kitchen: steady, gentle, well under baking heat, and cooler than any modern oven setting. The nearest approximation is an oven on its lowest mark with the door propped slightly ajar, watched closely so the shells dry rather than colour. Two hours may not be enough at that size; go by feel, until the shells lift cleanly and sound hollow.
- Hollowing the shellsThe instruction to "remove the soft part with a spoon" is what makes these cases rather than cookies. Do it while the undersides are still tender, scooping a shallow well so two shells can be joined around a generous filling.
- A breakfast cupfulReckon 8 to 10 fl oz of heavy cream, at or a little above a modern measuring cup, which whips to roughly double its volume. That is enough to fill about eighteen pairs.
- The wineThe recipe specifies only a teaspoonful of wine; a fortified wine such as sherry or Madeira would suit. At that quantity it flavours the cream without loosening it.
- Humidity is the hingeMeringue is hygroscopic. On a damp day the shells will stay tacky no matter how long they sit, and filled meringues soften within an hour or two. Dry the shells on a dry day, store them airtight, and fill only just before serving.
- YieldAbout thirty-six shells, or eighteen filled meringues.
Meringue as a technique — egg whites beaten with sugar and dried rather than baked — was well established in European confectionery long before Oscar Tschirky put it in print in 1896, and its name is traditionally traced to the Swiss town of Meiringen, a claim repeated far more often than it is documented. What is distinctly Waldorf here is the method and the equipment: three boards of a dozen each, dried in a warm closet, a sweet that could be shaped ahead and assembled at the last minute — though thirty-six shells is modest enough that it need not imply production at hotel scale. Oscar was not a chef but the hotel's maître d'hôtel, and his book reads like an inventory of what the kitchens under him actually turned out. The closing warning — that the meringues must not be exposed to any great heat — is the note of a man who knew how easily they could be spoiled.