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Dessert

Meringue, a LA Parisienne

A layered meringue dessert with a central pillar and two circles, baked and assembled with egg whites and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Meringue, a LA Parisienne

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the pastry pieces

  1. Rub the outside of a 1¼‑inch diameter tin vegetable cutter with a little oil.

  2. Roll out half the office‑paste to about ⅛ inch thick and cover the cutter to a length of 3½ inches. Seal the join with egg and place on a buttered baking sheet.

  3. Roll out the remaining paste and cut two circles, one 6 inches and the other 4 inches in diameter. Place the circles on a buttered baking sheet, egg‑wash them, prick with a fork, and bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until light in color.

  4. Once cooled, smooth the edges of the circles and level the ends of the pillar.

Assemble and bake the meringue

  1. Attach the pillar to the center of the larger circle with a mixture of egg white and sugar.

  2. Attach the smaller circle on top of the pillar, ensuring it is straight, and let it dry.

  3. Whip the egg whites into a firm froth and gradually mix in the sugar.

  4. Use some of the meringue to cover the entire surface of the assembled meringue structure.

  5. Dry the meringue at the entrance of the oven until hard.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Office-paste
Forms the crisp pastry base, pillar and circles that support the meringue structure.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that sets into the light, crisp meringue coating and glue.
Sugar
Sweetens the meringue and, dissolved into the whites, helps stabilise the foam and harden it when dried.

The step that matters

Dry the meringue at the entrance of the oven until hard. Meringue is mostly sugar and egg white foam; low, gentle heat dries it without browning, while high heat can cause it to colour, weep or crack.

“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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