French meringue

• 10 minutes to prepare • 1 hour to cook • Serves 20

 

Whisk me away

Made from just sugar and egg whites, meringues make for the lightest, almost cloud-like cookies and pastries.

With a crispy shell, slightly chewy center, and a subtle sweetness, baked meringue is a melt-in-your-mouth delight. It's also extremely versatile, as you may add optional ingredients for flavoring according to your taste, and useful: for instance, when you have prepared some custard - whose recipe requires egg yolks only - and you do not want to throw egg whites away.

Sure, meringue might not be as popular as the chocolate chip cookies or as Knam's tarts, but I'll bet you can't eat just one.
It is the heavenly, airy alternative to all those other heavy, sugary, buttery cookies; it's guaranteed to brighten your day after that first crisp bite.

Here's what you will need for the 20-serving recipe (20 meringues):

200 g egg whites
200 g sugar
200 g powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 130°C
2. Whip the egg whites until frothy, then start whipping in the sugar. Keep whipping until the meringue holds tall, sturdy peaks when you lift the whisk out of the bowl
3. After that, gradually add sifted powdered sugar while mixing with a wooden spoon following a down-across-up-and-over motion
4. When the mixture becomes stiff and shiny like satin, stop mixing, and transfer the mixture to a large pastry bag. Pipe the meringue out onto the prepared baking sheet using a large round tip or star tip
5. Bake the meringues low and slow at 130°C for 1 hour

In the following, Nutrition Facts of this dish are indicated. Data is provided per serving.

We only live once. Lick the bowl.