Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
To Make Meringues
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the eggs and sugar
Chill the eggs on ice for 1 hour.
Weigh the eggs and measure out the same weight in fine sifted sugar.
Make and shape the meringues
Whip the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.
Gently mix in the sugar.
Prepare a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and dust it with sugar.
Using a spoon, form the meringues into egg shapes, ensuring they do not touch each other.
Sift more sugar over the meringues.
Dry and serve
Dry the meringues in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until hard.
Carefully remove them from the paper and scoop out the soft centers.
Turn the meringues over onto another piece of paper and dry them again in the hot oven.
Fill the meringues with jam or cream when ready to serve.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
- Eggs
- Egg whites whipped into a foam provide the structure that holds the meringue together.
- Fine sifted sugar
- Sugar stabilizes the whipped foam and, once baked, gives the meringue its crisp, dry shell.
The step that matters
Gently mixing in the sugar. Overmixing after the sugar is added knocks air out of the whipped whites, so the meringues bake flat and lose volume. Fold gently and stop once the mixture is glossy and smooth.
“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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