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Dessert

Meringues or Kisses

A light, sweet dessert made from beaten egg whites and powdered sugar, baked into meringue kisses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Meringues or Kisses

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and flaky.

  2. Gradually beat in the powdered sugar until thick.

  3. Drop tablespoonfuls of the mixture onto buttered paper on a board.

  4. For kisses, drop from a teaspoon in any shape.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 30 minutes or until hard and hollow to the touch.

  2. Once cool, remove the soft part and fill with ice cream, sherbet, or whipped cream.

  3. Put two meringues together.

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 + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the meringue its structure and volume.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the whipped whites to add sweetness and stabilize the foam as it bakes dry.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff and flaky. Whites must be beaten to a firm foam that holds its shape. Under-beaten whites collapse in the oven, and any trace of fat or yolk prevents them from whipping up properly.

“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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