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Dessert

Chocolate Meringue

A dessert of meringue halves filled with whipped cream and dipped in chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Chocolate Meringue

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until very foamy.

  3. Add salt, cream of tartar, and half of the powdered sugar; mix well.

Shape and bake

  1. On parchment paper, shape the meringue mixture into halves of an orange using a spoon or pastry bag.

  2. Bake for about 45 minutes until set but not colored.

  3. Remove from the paper immediately and invert to remove any uncooked mixture.

Assemble and serve

  1. At serving time, fill the meringue halves with sweetened whipped cream, press together, and dip in chocolate fondant.

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. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Egg + chocolatetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (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 foam to form the airy structure that sets into the meringue.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and stabilizes the foam as it dissolves into the whites.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the whites, helping them foam more stably and resist collapse.
Sweetened whipped cream
Fills the baked halves, adding moisture and richness against the crisp shell.

The step that matters

Bake until set but not colored. Meringue is mostly protein and sugar foam; baking too long or too hot browns it and dries it out, making it brittle, while underbaking leaves it sticky and soft inside.

“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 chocolate meringue recipes

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