Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Petites Meringues Aux Cerises
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the meringue
Cook 300 g of sugar until it reaches a large ball stage.
Whip 4 egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Let the sugar cool slightly.
Mix the cooled sugar into the egg whites while whisking.
Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto parchment paper, shaping them into ovals about 3 cm long and 2 cm wide.
Sprinkle the meringues with powdered sugar.
Bake and fill
Bake the meringues until lightly golden at 400 °F (200 °C).
Once baked, remove the meringues from the parchment.
Scoop out some of the insides of the meringues.
Fill the scooped meringues with candied cherries.
Cover with another piece of meringue.
Let them dry on a sieve.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Sweetens the meringue and, once cooked, helps stabilise the foam as it sets.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that gives the meringue its airy structure, which sets when baked.
- Candied cherries
- Adds sweetness and chewy fruit flavour inside the baked shells.
The step that matters
Mix the cooled sugar into the egg whites while whisking. Sugar added while whisking dissolves into the foam and helps it hold its shape. Adding it too quickly or while it is still very hot can deflate the whites, so the sugar must cool slightly first.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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