Why it works: Egg and sugar 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 ↓
Dry Meringues
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat oven to 300°F (150°C).
Beat egg whites until firm.
Gradually add powdered sugar and essence, mixing well.
Shape and bake
Spoon mixture onto sheets of paper in the shape of half a large egg.
Sift additional sugar over meringues and blow away excess.
Place meringues on a thick board to bake, ensuring they receive heat only from the top.
Once they are a fine color, remove them from paper.
Use the back of a spoon to create a hollow in the meringues.
Return them to oven to dry the inside.
Serve
Fill the hollows with cream or jelly just before serving.
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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Egg + sugartop 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
- Egg whites
- Whipped to a firm foam that gives the meringues their structure and lightness.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens and, as it dissolves into the foam, helps stabilize and dry the meringue.
The step that matters
Baking at low heat from the top only. Meringue is mostly sugar and egg white, so high or bottom heat can brown or scorch it before the inside dries. Gentle top heat sets and dries the shell evenly, keeping it crisp and pale.
“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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