By Published July 29, 2023.
This is Technique #95 from our 100 Techniques Every Home Cook Can Master.
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Meringue is simply egg whites and sugar whipped and baked into fluffy, billowy clouds and while the French style is traditional, we shy away from traditional to achieve more height with a cloudlike texture for certain applications.
French meringue is called for often in dessert making: It gets folded into cake batters, baked as is for cookies, used to top pies, and shaped into pavlovas.
But we’ve found that a towering topping of French meringue doesn’t cook through on our lemon meringue pie, and a pavlova made with French meringue requires too much guesswork to determine when it has reached the correct doneness temperature.
Fortunately, there are more reliable ways to achieve the same effect and luxurious results.
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We often find French meringue fussy to work with because, well, it's the fussiest style of meringue. The sugar must be added to the egg whites at precisely the right moment: too soon and the meringue won’t inflate properly; too late and the meringue will be gritty.
So we favor one of the other two styles of meringue, where the sugar is dissolved right from the start.
Italian meringue involves making a sugar syrup and beating it into egg whites as they are whipped.
Swiss meringue involves gently warming sugar and egg whites in a bowl over simmering water until the sugar is dissolved and then whipping the mixture. These meringues are most commonly used for buttercream frostings.
We like the lighter Italian meringue for topping meringue pies. The sugar syrup of our Italian meringue transforms egg whites into a tall, extra-fluffy topping that cooks through and is stable enough to resist unattractive weeping, one of the banes of lemon meringue pie.
Using the firmer Swiss meringue for pavlova guarantees success, with two alterations.
1. The typical temperature for the egg white mixture before whipping is 140 degrees, but heating the whites to 160 degrees causes them to become more tightly knit.
2. Increasing the amount of sugar draws more water from the egg whites so the meringue’s exterior crisps up during baking, to achieve the desired textural contrast between crisp outer shell, marshmallowy interior, and pleasant chew where the two textures meet.
By using a stand mixer and following these steps, it's fast and straightforward to whip up light and fluffy meringue.
Bring sugar and water to vigorous rolling boil and cook until mixture is slightly thickened and syrupy. Remove from heat.
Using stand mixer fitted with whisk, whip egg whites on medium-low speed until frothy. Add salt and cream of tartar and whip, gradually increasing speed, until whites hold soft peaks.
With mixer running, slowly pour hot syrup into whites. Add vanilla and whip until meringue is cooled, very thick, and shiny.
Want to whip up light, fluffy, and impressively tall meringues? Try these recipes.
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