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Dessert

Italian Meringues

A sweet dessert made from sugar and egg whites, flavored with lemon and liqueur.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and saffron match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 538 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Italian Meringues

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sugar syrup

  1. Boil sugar until it reaches the blow degree, then place the sugar boiler in a bowl of cold water.

  2. Work the sugar with the back of a spoon against the sides of the pan until semi-opalized.

Combine and shape

  1. Whip egg whites into a stiff, snowy froth.

  2. Add whipped egg whites, lemon juice, and liqueur, and mix thoroughly but lightly.

  3. Shape the meringue using a biscuit forcer into small forms like hearts or rings.

Dry and decorate

  1. Dry the meringues in the oven without coloring them; check the heat with a piece of white paper.

  2. If desired, sprinkle colored sugar on the surface for decoration.

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. Lemon + saffrontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together538 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Sugar
Cooked to a syrup that sets the meringue and gives it sweetness and a glossy structure.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam that gives the meringue its airy structure and lightness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that helps stabilize the whipped egg white foam.
Liqueur
Adds flavor and aroma to the meringue mixture.

The step that matters

Working the sugar until semi-opalized. Sugar syrup must be worked to the right point of cooling and crystallization; if it is too hot or not worked enough, it can deflate the foam or make the meringue weep or stay soft, and if the oven is too hot the meringues brown instead of drying.

Swap the saffron

The recipe marks saffron as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, lemon, chocolate):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Saffronthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, lemon, chocolate. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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