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Meringue Shells
Place whites of six eggs in a copper basin with half saltspoon salt, place basin on ice, and with a clean wire whip begin to beat it, slowly at first but gradually increasing in briskness until a stiff froth. Add three-quarters pound powdered sugar and gently mix with the forth. Then flavor with six drops vanilla essence and gently mix again. Slide a plain tube half an inch in diameter at bottom of a pastry bag, drop the meringue preparation into the bag. Lay a piece of white paper over a pastry sheet and press the meringue on the paper in egg-shaped forms, two and a half inches long by one inch high. Sprinkle powdered sugar liberally over, set in oven twenty-five minutes. Remove, let rest ten minutes. Lift up paper and place on a lightly wet table for two minutes, detach meringues from the paper, then with an egg gently press down the flat side of the shells to give a perfect form and keep in a dry place till required.
A professional's meringue: no oven temperature, no yield, and one step that only makes sense if you are baking on bare paper rather than parchment. Both are easy to supply.
- Oven heatThe original gives twenty-five minutes and no temperature. Meringue shells of this size want a slow oven, 200-225F, and closer to 60-90 minutes, until they lift cleanly and sound hollow. Twenty-five minutes at that heat leaves the centres wet; a hotter oven browns and cracks them.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is about a quarter teaspoon, so half a saltspoon is a pinch. It is a very small amount, added to the whites before beating rather than as seasoning.
- Powdered sugarIn period American cookbooks "powdered sugar" meant finely ground granulated sugar, closer to today's caster or superfine sugar. Modern confectioners' sugar contains cornstarch and gives a softer, chalkier shell. Use superfine sugar in the meringue and reserve confectioners' sugar for the dusting.
- Proportions and yieldSix large whites run about 7 oz, and three-quarters pound of sugar is 12 oz, noticeably under the classic two-parts-sugar-to-one-part-white. Expect roughly 20 to 24 shells at the size given.
- Copper and coldThe copper basin is real chemistry, not affectation: trace copper ions stabilise the foam. A pinch of cream of tartar in a stainless bowl does the same job. Chilling the bowl on ice slows the whip, which is why many modern recipes start with whites at room temperature instead.
- Adding the sugar"Gently mix" is the hinge. Fold the sugar in by hand once the whites hold a stiff peak, or beat it in a spoonful at a time; dumping 12 oz into the bowl at speed deflates the foam and you will pipe puddles.
- The wet tableDamp under the paper is how you release meringues stuck to plain bakery paper. Bake on parchment or a silicone mat and skip the step entirely.
- Pressing with an eggAn egg in the shell, used as a small dome, hollows the flat underside so two shells can be sandwiched with whipped cream. The bowl of a teaspoon works as well. Do it while the shells are still slightly warm and pliable.
- Storage"Keep in a dry place" is not filler. Meringue is hygroscopic and will go leathery in a humid kitchen within hours; an airtight tin is essential.
This is kitchen-brigade writing: a copper basin, a wire whip, a plain half-inch tube, and the assumption that the reader owns a pastry bag and can judge oven heat unaided. Alexander Filippini spent decades at Delmonico's in New York, and the instructions in his books read as they would have been dictated to a pastry cook rather than a housewife. Meringue itself is older than the name in English; the French word appears in print in François Massialot's cookbook of 1692, and similar sugar-and-white confections were being baked as "white biskit bread" in England well before that. A popular story traces the name to the Swiss town of Meiringen, but that attribution is traditional and unproven. Shells like these became a fixture of late nineteenth-century restaurant menus, plausibly helped by cheap refined white sugar and better control of low oven heat.