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Meringue Tarts
Have in readiness some tarts made of any preserved fruit or jam. Meanwhile whisk the whites of two eggs to a froth, adding slowly four ounces of sugar and a little lemon or vanilla flavoring; pour it over the tart to about one inch in thickness, smoothing it with a knife, put the tart in the oven for a few minutes to color slightly the meringue, and serve. It may be served either hot or cold, as preferred.
A finishing technique rather than a full recipe: Oscar assumes you already have baked jam tarts on the counter and only need the meringue. The proportions are the part worth attention.
- The sugar ratioFour ounces of sugar to two whites is about 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons — roughly 56 g sugar per white, which is a stiff, sweet, stable meringue rather than a soft airy one. Add it a spoonful at a time only after the whites hold soft peaks, and beat until the mixture is glossy and no grit remains between your fingers.
- "A few minutes" in the ovenThe original names no temperature. For colour only, a hot oven of about 400-425F for 5-8 minutes, watched constantly, will do it; a moderate 350F for 12-15 minutes will dry the meringue through rather than just tint it, which is fine if you prefer it crisp.
- The tart must be baked firstNothing here cooks the pastry. The shells go in fully baked and filled; the meringue is a topping applied to a finished tart.
- An inch is a lotA full inch of meringue over a small tart will crack and slump. Pile it that high only on a large single tart, and take the meringue right out to the pastry edge so it has something to grip and does not shrink inward.
- Weeping and beadingUndissolved sugar beads into amber droplets on the surface; underbeaten whites leak syrup underneath. A pinch of cream of tartar or a few drops of lemon juice with the whites gives insurance the original does not mention.
- Flavouring"A little" means about 1/4 teaspoon vanilla or the grated zest of half a lemon. Keep liquid to a minimum — more than a teaspoon of extract will slacken the foam.
- Yield and servingTwo whites will cover one 8-9 inch tart, though in a thinner layer than the full inch the original suggests, or about six individual ones. Serve within a couple of hours: meringue on a moist jam filling begins to soften and slide by the next day, and refrigeration makes it worse, not better.
Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's celebrated maître d'hôtel, published his Cook Book in 1896, and much of it reads like this — brisk professional shorthand for a kitchen brigade that already knew the basics and needed only the proportions. Meringue itself is far older: sweetened whisked egg white appears in European manuscript cookery from the seventeenth century onward, and the name is often traced, on traditional rather than documented grounds, to the Swiss town of Meiringen. What makes the entry characteristic of its moment is the assumption of a well-stocked larder of "any preserved fruit or jam" — with that on hand, a meringue tart was a way of dressing preserves into a dinner sweet in ten minutes.