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Meringues

A sweet, airy confection made from beaten egg whites, icing sugar, vinegar, and colored sugar.

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

Why it works: White wine and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,776 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Meringues

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Separate the whites from 18 eggs.

  2. Grease 3 or 4 sheets of thin cartridge paper and cut them into stripes.

Make the meringue

  1. Beat 12 egg whites in a brass or copper pan until very light, adding 1 tablespoon of vinegar.

  2. In a basin, beat the remaining 6 egg whites with 2 pounds of icing sugar and 1 tablespoon of vinegar until light and stiff.

  3. Gently mix both mixtures together in the pan.

Shape and bake

  1. Drop the meringue mixture onto the paper in egg shapes using a tablespoon.

  2. Sprinkle colored sugar on top of each meringue.

  3. Place in a cool oven with the door slightly open for 1 hour.

  4. Remove from the paper using a sharp knife dipped in warm water and pair them 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.

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. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + white winetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,586 recipes

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

  5. Egg + white winetop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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 foam that traps air, giving the meringues their light, airy structure.
Icing sugar
Dissolves into the whites to stabilise the foam and add sweetness.
White wine vinegar
Acidity helps the egg white proteins foam more stably and hold their shape.

The step that matters

Gently mix both mixtures together in the pan.. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whipped whites. Vigorous stirring knocks air out, so the meringues bake flat and dense.

“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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