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Meringue Shells
Prepare a meringue mixture. Slide a tube down a pastry-bag, lay a piece of paper over a baking-sheet, and after putting the meringue into the bag, press it out into the paper, giving it an egg-shape two and one-half inches long by one inch in height. There should be sufficient to make eighteen equal-sized shells. Be careful to keep them about one inch apart. Sprinkle liberally with powdered sugar, and place in a slow oven to bake for half an hour. Remove, allow it to cool for twenty-five minutes, turn the paper containing the shells upside down on the table, and with a wet cloth or brush moisten the paper well; turn it over once more and leave for two minutes, when the shells can be easily detached. With the finger press them gently, one by one, at the bottom, into a perfect shell-shape. Return to the baking-sheet, laying them upside down, place them in the oven to dry thoroughly for ten minutes, and leave to cool for thirty minutes longer. Keep them in a dry place, either in a tin or paper box, and use when required. Meringue shells prepared in this way will keep well for nearly or quite a month.
Oscar assumes you already have a meringue mixture on hand and that you are baking on plain paper, which accounts for the odd business of wetting the sheet. Both points are worth translating before you start.
- The meringue itselfThe book leaves the mixture to an earlier page. A typical period proportion is around 4 egg whites beaten stiff with 7-8 oz of superfine sugar, part beaten in and part folded, though the exact ratio varies from book to book. Whites at room temperature and a scrupulously grease-free bowl matter more than any other detail here.
- "Slow oven"The book never gives a figure; a slow oven of this period is generally taken as somewhere around 250-300F. For white, crisp shells modern practice goes lower still, 200-225F, and treats the process as drying rather than baking; at the upper end for half an hour the shells will take on a pale tan and may crack. Choose your temperature according to whether you want them ivory or blond.
- Parchment instead of plain paperThe wet-cloth trick exists because meringue welds itself to uncoated paper. On parchment or a silicone mat the shells lift away cleanly once cool, so skip the moistening step entirely — added water is the enemy of a dried meringue.
- PipingA plain round tube of about 1/2 inch gives the egg shape he describes, 2 1/2 inches long by 1 inch high. Hold the bag at a low angle and pipe in one steady pass rather than building up in layers.
- The dusting of sugarThe powdered sugar sprinkled on top is what gives the fine crackled crust characteristic of a hotel meringue. Use a sieve and be generous, as he says, but shake off any thick drifts between the shells.
- Hollowing the shellsThis is the hinge of the recipe. The bottoms need to be still slightly soft when you press them in with a thumb, which is why he detaches them after a short cooling rather than leaving them to harden; wait too long and they shatter instead of cupping. Return them inverted to the oven so the new interior dries out.
- Yield and useEighteen shells, meant to be paired or filled: whipped cream, ice cream, or fruit go in at the last minute, since any moist filling softens the shell within the hour.
- Keeping them a monthThe month of storage is realistic only in genuinely dry air. Keep them in a tin with a tight lid, never in the refrigerator, and re-crisp for a few minutes in a low oven if humidity has got at them.
Meringue of whisked egg white and sugar appears in recipe collections from the seventeenth century onward, dried in the falling heat of a cooling bread oven — which is what Oscar's "slow oven" imitates. The piped hollow shell belongs to the professional pastry kitchen; the pastry bag and metal tube were in use through the nineteenth century, and a hotel could turn out identical shells by the gross. Oscar Tschirky's book, published in 1896 out of the Waldorf's kitchens, is full of components like this: not a dessert in itself but a stock item to be held in a tin and filled to order, which is why he ends with a note on shelf life rather than on serving. The name is generally traced to the Swiss town of Meiringen, though the connection is traditional and not documented.