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Dessert

Italian Meringues

A sweet dessert made by boiling sugar with water, adding egg whites, and baking until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Italian Meringues

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar in water until it whitens and becomes flaky.

  2. Scrape any sugar from the sides of the pan.

Make the meringue

  1. Gradually stir in the whisked egg whites while mixing briskly until smooth.

  2. Continue stirring until the mixture can hold the shape of a teaspoon.

Shape and bake

  1. Mould the meringues and place them on paper.

  2. Bake in a gentle oven at 300°F (150°C) until hardened and white.

Add almonds

  1. If using almonds, blanch and pound them, then mix with the egg and sugar.

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 + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

  3. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolved and boiled into a syrup that gives sweetness and body to the meringue.
Egg whites
Whisked into a foam that gives the meringue its airy structure and sets when baked.

The step that matters

Continue stirring until the mixture can hold the shape of a teaspoon. The mixture must be stiff enough to keep its shape. If it is too soft, the foam collapses and the meringue will not hold its form or set properly in the oven.

Swap the almond

The recipe marks almond as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits 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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