These 5-ingredient cookies are the ultimate melt-in-your-mouth treat

It’s hard to open a pastry cookbook without seeing at least one recipe that requires the use of French meringue. Since the 17th century, cooks have been using it as a natural leavening agent (an ingredient that provides rise and structure) for all types of desserts, including angel food cake, soufflé, pavlova, baked Alaska, Eton mess, and baked meringue cookies. Used to be. to name a few.

French meringue is one of the simplest, yet mysterious ingredients in the pastry world. It contains only four ingredients: egg whites, sugar, acid, and salt. Alone these ingredients may seem unremarkable, but when combined with the most important element, vigorous beating, they become a miracle of chemistry and confectionary.

There are entire chapters from science-related books involved, but for the sake of brevity, here’s the quick and dirty version. Egg whites are composed mostly of water and protein. When they are beaten, the normally tightly wound proteins (mostly ovalbumin) begin to unravel and expand, causing them to bind to each other. This network of proteins reinforces the tiny air bubbles formed in the white water, creating a thick foam. As you continue beating, the protein-strengthened walls of these bubbles become thinner and thinner as more and more air is introduced until a critical ratio of air to water is reached in the foam. Suddenly, the walls begin to deform and the meringue takes on a broken appearance like a dull, lumpy cloud. Adding the acid (in most cases, cream of tartar) helps strengthen the bonds between the proteins, while the sugar adds viscosity to the water, which both creates stronger bubbles and prevents this clumping from occurring.

Chefs, what does all this mean for you? When making meringue, vigilance is key, which means watching carefully as you whip the egg whites, adding the other ingredients at the appropriate times, and adding the sugar continuously and in small amounts to ensure that you get the consistency as the sugar dissolves. Stabilizing the meringue. Pour into the mixture properly. Cooks use all kinds of different methods when making French meringue, none of which are wrong, but I’ve found that a reliably stable meringue is achieved with just a few tips here.

separate the eggs carefully

When whipping egg whites for meringue, clean and complete separation is important to achieve volume. A small amount of fat (which is in the yolk) will make the meringue flat and tasteless. To make sure you don’t waste the entire batch, separate the whites from the yolks one at a time in a separate bowl, then add them to the mixing bowl after each separation. This way, if you break an egg, you’ve only wasted one egg (but go ahead and have it for breakfast instead!).

Beat until soft or stiff peaks as needed

Different recipes will call for either soft peaks or firm peaks. Once the meringue looks big, shiny and thick, turn off the mixer and check that the meringue is at the soft peak stage by dipping the whisk vertically into the bowl and pulling straight up, then turning it over. A “soft peak” will slowly begin to move while a firm peak will not move. If you are whipping to soft peaks, the meringue will start to fall down a bit after being held sideways for five seconds. For firm peaks, the meringue should not be shaken during this test. If the meringue has not reached the desired consistency, continue beating on high speed for another 30 seconds to 1 minute, then stop and test again.

July 2011

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