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Meringues Seches

Dry meringues made from beaten egg whites and sugar, baked until crisp.

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

Meringues Seches

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.

Prepare

  1. Use fresh eggs and break them just before use.

  2. In a deep, clean pan, beat the egg whites until very firm.

  3. Gradually add 6 tablespoons of sugar, mixing well until combined.

  4. Prepare thick boards and cut 2-inch wide strips of paper.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the meringues like halved eggs on the paper using a spoon.

  2. Sift additional sugar over the meringues and remove excess sugar.

  3. Place the paper strips on a board and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C).

  4. Remove when they start to color, then gently turn them onto a table.

  5. Scoop out a little from the center with a small spoon.

  6. Turn the meringues upside down onto clean paper and return to the oven to bake the soft part.

Store

  1. Store in a dry place until ready to serve.

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

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the meringues their structure and airy, crisp shell.
Sugar
Stabilizes the whipped foam and helps the meringues dry to a crisp, sweet texture.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until very firm. Egg whites must be whipped until stiff peaks form so they trap air. Any trace of grease or yolk in the bowl or whites prevents full foam development, and under-whipped whites collapse during baking, leaving flat, dense meringues.

“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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