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Dessert

Meringues with Cream

Meringues with cream are light meringue shells filled with cream or apple whipped filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Meringues with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites with a whisk until stiff.

  2. Gradually add the sugar until the mixture is firm.

Shape and bake

  1. Scoop out the mixture with a small tablespoon, shaping it like an egg.

  2. Place the meringues on a sheet of parchment paper, spaced apart.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 15 minutes until pale yellow.

  4. Carefully scoop out the flat side of each meringue.

  5. Return them to the oven for a few minutes to dry the inside.

  6. Let them cool on a sieve until needed.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill with cream or apple whipped, then sandwich the flat sides 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the meringues their light, airy structure.
Powdered loaf sugar
Stabilises the whipped foam and gives the baked meringues their crisp texture and sweetness.

The step that matters

Beating the sugar into the egg whites. Sugar should be added gradually so the foam becomes firm and glossy. Adding it too fast or while the whites are underwhipped can leave the foam weak and prevent it from holding its shape in the oven.

“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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