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Meringues

Meringues are sweet, airy cakes made from beaten egg whites and powdered sugar, baked until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Meringues

Why it works: Vanilla and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Meringues

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Gradually stir in powdered sugar with a wooden spoon until well combined.

  4. Prepare baking sheets with strips of paper, about 2 inches wide.

  5. Drop tablespoonfuls of mixture onto paper, shaping them like eggs and spacing them 2 inches apart.

  6. Sprinkle sifted sugar over the meringues.

Bake and hollow

  1. Bake for 2 hours, watching for color change; remove when they begin to brown.

  2. Gently turn the meringues over and use a small spoon to remove the soft centers.

  3. Place them upside down on clean paper and return to the oven to harden and brown the other side.

Fill and serve

  1. Once cooled, fill with whipped cream flavored with liqueur or vanilla and sweetened with powdered sugar.

  2. Join two meringues together and stack them high on a serving dish.

  3. For variation, sprinkle with chopped almonds or currants before adding 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks, they trap air that gives the meringues their light, crisp structure.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the whipped whites, stabilizing the foam and adding sweetness and a crisp texture when baked.
Whipped cream
Adds moisture and richness to the filling, softening the crisp shells when they are sandwiched together.

The step that matters

Baking and drying the meringues slowly. Low, slow heat dries the meringue rather than browning it quickly. Baking too hot can brown or crack the shells, and removing them too early leaves them soft and sticky inside.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Macadamia nutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cream, vanilla. 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.

More meringues recipes

Italian 23Cream 9Apple 8Dry 7Spanish 4Egg-Shaped 3 See all 42 →

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