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Dessert

Italian Meringues

A light dessert made from whipped egg whites, sugar, lemon juice, and liqueur, shaped into small meringue forms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Italian Meringues

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar until it reaches the soft ball stage.

  2. Set the sugar boiler in a bowl of cold water.

Make the meringue

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff and frothy.

  2. Gradually mix the sugar into the whipped egg whites using a spoon.

  3. Add the lemon juice and liqueur, mixing thoroughly but lightly.

Shape

  1. Shape the meringue paste into small forms using a biscuit forcer.

  2. Optionally, color the meringue with a few drops of cochineal.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Boiled to soft ball stage, it forms a syrup that sets the whipped whites into a stable meringue.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that traps air and gives the meringue its structure.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that helps stabilize the whipped egg white foam.
Liqueur
Adds aroma and flavour to the meringue.

The step that matters

Gradually mix the sugar into the whipped egg whites. Pouring the hot syrup in slowly, while whisking, cooks the whites gently and keeps the foam glossy and stable. Adding it too quickly can deflate the foam and make the meringue weep or lose volume.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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