Large white fluffy meringues. Meringue cake

Extra proteins always remain with those housewives who are fond of preparing desserts and pastries. Where to put a large amount of proteins? Of course, use them to make meringues. After all, this airy cake with a delicate crispy crust will not leave any sweet tooth indifferent.

A sophisticated delicacy

Meringue has a lot of names, but they all represent something tender, weightless, light. This word is translated from French as “tender kiss.” Pre-revolutionary Russia knew the airy meringue cake as the “Spanish wind.” Quite often this dessert is called “meringue”. Meringue, as many cookbooks say, is just that, but dried protein cream with a crispy crust is meringue.

But no matter what the name of this dessert is, no matter what country it is prepared in, you will not find a strong difference between the recipe. The composition of the cake is quite simple: protein and granulated sugar. However, an airy protein cake is a rather fragile and capricious substance, which sometimes brings a lot of disappointments and unpleasant surprises to an inexperienced cook.

Experienced chefs advise beginners, if they want to make meringue at home, not to run straight to the refrigerator and not take the eggs out of the tray. First, you should “arm yourself” with theoretical knowledge, learn some cooking secrets, and then proceed directly to sculpting a culinary masterpiece.

Methods for making meringue

You can prepare many dishes at home, including the airy one with photos you will find in our article. Today we will reveal several cooking secrets that will certainly be useful for novice housewives.

French way

So, there are several popular ways to prepare meringue. The simplest of them is the French method. It can be used in cases where there is no need to make an airy cake of some ornate, complex shape. The French version involves beating chilled egg whites until stiff, adding a pinch of salt. added only at the final stage of cooking. The protein mass in this case turns out to be quite fluffy. Stiff peaks are a symbol of the correct consistency of the meringue cream.

Italian way

Italian chefs came up with a slightly different way of preparing meringue. After you beat the chilled whites, you should add not ordinary granulated sugar to them, but pre-prepared sugar syrup. It turns out that you brew the whites with steep, almost boiling syrup, and then they will not fall off during baking. This protein cream is perfect for making complex cake shapes and for layering cakes. In addition, the Italian version allows you to add butter if you need to prepare cream for the cake. The French version will leak when combined with fats.

Swiss way

The densest and most durable airy meringue cake is produced by Swiss chefs. But this method is considered the most labor-intensive and time-consuming, since a water bath is involved in the preparation. But if you have the patience to make meringue in a water bath using the Swiss method, then you can easily draw ornate patterns on cakes with the resulting cream, or place it on unusually shaped cookies. This cream will not fall off, fail during baking, or leak out.

Required Ingredients

• White from five eggs.
• 250 grams of granulated sugar.
• A pinch of salt or a teaspoon of lemon juice.

Cooking process

We prepared the dishes and ingredients. We begin to beat the whites. Add a pinch of salt or citric acid. Beat at low speed until small air bubbles appear. Gradually add powdered sugar to the mixture. Continue manipulation until the cream is thick enough. It should not slide off the whisk; there should be, as culinary experts call it, hard peaks.

Prepare a baking sheet by lining it with oiled paper. You can pipe the meringue using either a special pastry syringe or a regular tablespoon.

Preheat the oven to 80-100 degrees. Depending on the size and thickness, they should take from one and a half to two hours. When the meringues are ready, do not rush to remove them from the baking sheet. Let the dish cool slightly. When the cakes have cooled, carefully lift them off the sheet and remove.

Cooking secrets

So, you have chosen a convenient and acceptable method for preparing meringue. Now all that remains is to learn a few secrets, the knowledge of which will help even an inexperienced housewife to create an exquisite, airy culinary miracle.

• When starting to prepare meringues, remember that the whites must be fresh.
• When you prepare a fluffy cake at home, try to break each egg over a separate bowl. Of course, the store promised you that the eggs are the freshest, but sometimes incidents happen. Agree, it will be very unpleasant if one smelly “something” is added to four good proteins. The job is ruined, start over. Do you need it?!
• To make the sugar dissolve faster in the protein cream, first grind it into a fine powder. You can also buy it ready-made in the store. Remember, the finer the granulated sugar, the faster it will dissolve, and therefore, the faster you will beat the mass.

• Some housewives add a pinch of salt while whipping. But experienced experts still advise giving preference to citric acid or lemon juice. If you take acid, then our recipe will require one teaspoon of citric acid diluted in two teaspoons of water.
• A mandatory rule if you want to make the perfect fluffy meringue cake is to use only clean (very clean!) dishes and whisks. There should be no hint of grease or other impurities on the instruments used.
• To get the perfect meringue, use this trick. Spread special baking paper on a baking sheet, on which you first draw even circles. When you pipet the cream with a syringe, it will be easier for you to make all the cakes even and identical.

Meringue (or meringue) is egg whites whipped with sugar into a strong foam and dried in the oven. Translated from French, meringue (baiser) means “kiss”. This delicate dessert goes by many other romantic names - “Spanish wind”, “French meringues”, “love meringue”. Meringue is a delicious treat that nothing compares to.. It's good on its own with a cup of coffee or tea. It can be decorated with cream and berries, turning it into an elegant cake. In addition, meringue is often used to form cakes and, as a rule, these cakes have a special unforgettable taste. The recipe for making meringue is quite simple, but despite this, meringue is a big whim - sometimes the sugar is not right for it, sometimes the whites don’t want to whip, sometimes it doesn’t dry out, but melts in the oven. I'll talk about how to avoid troubles and mistakes when making meringues. I am sure that if you make friends with this recipe, meringue will become your favorite baked goods.

You will need:

• egg whites 3 pcs

The most popular proportion of proteins and sugar -for 1 protein 50 g sugar. Use this as a guide when choosing the quantity of baking. For convenience, they usually take 4 whites and a glass of sugar, but I chose the proportion with three whites, because... from this amount of ingredients, a whipped protein mass is obtained just for one baking sheet of small meringues. Of course, you can place four whipped egg whites on one baking sheet, but then the meringues will be larger.

How to diversify meringues?

- You can add it to meringue nuts, which are chopped into large pieces with a knife, added to the whipped protein mass before baking and mixed with a spoon. The proportion of nuts is the same as sugar.

- You can also make the meringue colorful by adding a little syrup or juice, for example, cranberries (about a tablespoon for three whites). This should be done at the end of beating.

- Before baking, the meringue can be decorated with multi-colored or chocolate sprinkles, and after baking, the cooled meringue can be poured with melted chocolate.

As you can see, there are plenty of creative options, all that remains is to bake the meringue)

What do you need to know when baking meringue?

- Eggs must be fresh. Break one egg onto a saucer and look at the white - it should lie around the yolk like a hard elastic ring, and not spread out into a liquid puddle. It is from these proteins that perfect meringue is obtained.

- Eggs must be chilled. In cold eggs, the white separates from the yolk more easily and beats faster.

- Carefully separate the whites from the yolks. Even one small drop of yolk falling into a bowl of whites can ruin everything. Therefore, it is better to separate each new egg over a separate bowl, so that in case of failure, the white with the yolk in it can be replaced with another.

- Use white sugar with fine crystals. Sugar must be dry.

The container in which you will beat the meringue, as well as the mixer whisk, must be clean, grease-free and dry. Therefore, thoroughly wash the bowl and whisk (even if they are clean) with baking soda or detergent and wipe dry.

Step-by-step photo recipe for making meringue:

Separate the yolks from the whites. This can be conveniently done using a special egg separator or by pouring the yolk from one half of the shell to the other. You can simply pour the egg into your hand and pass the white between your fingers.

Advice: prepare from the remaining yolks , which can be wrapped in foil or cling film and stored in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. And you can cook something else- a very tasty, warming drink.

Beat the whites with a mixer for 2-3 minutes. Start with low revs and gradually increase speed. For better results, some cooks recommend adding a pinch of salt or 3-5 drops of lemon juice to the whites before beating (I don’t add them).

The whites should increase in volume and turn into a strong fluffy foam.

Without turning off the mixer add sugar- sprinkle gradually, in a thin stream. Once the sugar is completely added, beat for 6-7 minutes. You may need more or less time - depending on the power of the mixer.

The protein mass is considered well whipped when a visible mark from the whisk remains on its surface and the sugar has completely dissolved (rub a little whipped protein between your fingers - grains of sugar should not be felt). If you decide to add nuts, do so now.

Line a baking tray with baking paper. Using a spoon place the meringue on a baking sheet.

Properly whipped whites “tightly” stick to the spoon, so when placing them on a baking sheet, help with another spoon or just your finger.

You can transfer the whipped mixture into a pastry bag and pipe the meringue using various nozzles into the desired shape.

I prefer not to make unnecessary movements and spread the meringue with a spoon. I like these shapeless pieces, each of which is unique and, when finished, is very reminiscent of Netsuke figurines - a miniature Japanese sculpture made of animal bones or fangs. My husband, when he first saw homemade meringue, called these cakes exactly that. Since then, in our family, meringue is called Netski, with the ending “and” in the Russian manner)))

Bake the meringues in a preheated oven at t 90°C 2 hours. Don't be embarrassed if the meringue is a little soft after two hours - turn off the heat and leave the meringue in the oven until it cools completely, then it will harden.

Advice: The process of making meringue is more of a drying process than a baking process, so the oven temperature should be low. If your oven “can’t” set a low temperature (there are ovens with a minimum temperature of 160°), cook the meringue with the oven door slightly open for 1 hour, then turn the baking sheet 180° and cook for another 1 hour.

The “correct” finished meringue should be white or have a slightly creamy tint, be fragile, easily crumble when pressed with your fingers, melt evenly in the mouth and not stick to the teeth.

Try making this crispy sweet miracle at home, you will definitely succeed!

How nice it is to receive such beauty as a gift! Give homemade baked goods to your loved ones - place them in a beautiful cardboard box or tin.

Children, looking at homemade meringue of fancy shapes, love to fantasize and guess what it looks like - this develops their imagination.

Meringue also contains no fat at all, so this dessert can be eaten by those who are watching their figure, of course, in reasonable quantities)

You will need:

• egg whites 3 pcs
• sugar 150 g or 3/4 cup (glass volume 200 ml)

Separate the yolks from the whites.

Beat the whites with a mixer until fluffy foam for 2-3 minutes.

Without turning off the mixer, add sugar - pour gradually, in a thin stream. Once the sugar is completely added, beat for 6-7 minutes. The whites are considered well whipped when a visible trace of the whisk remains on the surface of the mass and the sugar has completely dissolved (rub a little whipped egg white between your fingers - grains of sugar should not be felt).

Using a spoon, spoon the egg white mixture onto a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Bake the meringue in a preheated oven at 90°C for 2 hours.

French meringue cake (meringue) can be fragile and crumbly, tender and melting in the mouth, soft inside and crispy on the outside - it is no coincidence that the French called this airy dessert “kiss”, emphasizing its sweetness and sophistication. is a protein cake, and meringue is a protein cream from which meringues are made or which is used as a filling for confectionery products. Due to the fact that meringue contains a small amount of ingredients, it seems that it is quite simple to prepare, but meringue is a capricious dessert that sometimes behaves unpredictably. Not every cook (especially a beginner) knows how to prepare meringues and meringues correctly, so it’s worth first mastering a few techniques that will help you get a real French dessert without flaws.

Cooking meringues at home: the subtleties of French culinary art

Let's talk about how to bake meringue at home, which recipe to choose and how to achieve perfection in the art of making protein dough, which should be airy, foamy, light and at the same time dense, plastic and well-retained. Knowing the secrets of cooking, you will get beautiful and tasty fluffy cakes and other desserts from egg whites whipped with sugar and baked in the oven.

French, Italian and Swiss method of making meringue

There are three ways to prepare meringue - French, Italian and Swiss. The French prepare protein mass very simply - beat the whites with a pinch of salt, gradually adding powdered sugar until it holds its shape perfectly. Those prepared in French turn out to be tender and airy, but they are only suitable for simple-shaped cakes, since graceful and ornate roses can blur and lose their original appearance.

Instead of sugar, Italians add thick and hot sugar syrup to the protein mass, pouring it in a thin stream and not stopping whipping for a second. The soft and tasty cream, which turns out a little custard due to the hot syrup, is used to coat cakes, fill tubes and eclairs. The cream is easily mixed with butter to add new shades of flavor, unlike French meringue, which, when combined with fats, immediately loses its shape.

The most masterly meringue is prepared according to a Swiss recipe, since it is made in a water bath, and the mass increases in volume several times. The thick and elastic mass produces fancy cookies and ornate cream patterns on cakes that do not blur and look very impressive.

The subtleties of making perfect meringue

The dishes and kitchen utensils that you will use to beat egg whites must be perfectly clean and free of grease. The fact is that fat deteriorates the quality of the protein dough and prevents the meringue from maintaining its shape, so before cooking, you should pour boiling water with the addition of lemon juice over the dishes.

Many chefs recommend using only very fresh eggs, which is understandable if you are going to make protein cream, that is, eat proteins without heat treatment. To prepare meringues, it is better to take eggs that are a week old, since the whites become drier during storage and are much easier to whip.

For meringue, warm, rather than chilled, whites are more suitable, the temperature of which is 22-25 °C. Cold whites whip faster, but the mass turns out to be less voluminous, denser and unstable during baking. Warm whites give a fluffy airy mass with a stable texture, as a result of which the products rise perfectly in the oven, bake well and keep their shape.

Try not to use sugar, but powdered sugar, because the finer the grains, the better the protein mass is whipped, making it more tender and light, and not completely dissolved sugar can squeak on your teeth, which is not always pleasant when tasting dessert.

At the very beginning, the speed of whipping the whites should be slow to saturate the mass with oxygen, and when foam with bubbles appears, the speed can be increased to maximum.

Add sugar gradually - 1 tsp at a time. at regular intervals. If you add sugar right away, the meringues will settle after baking. Please be patient so that the result meets your expectations!

To get a crispy meringue, beat the egg whites until they reach sharp peaks - when the mixture stretches behind the whisk, forming beak-like angles. If the white cream forms round peaks on the whisk that gradually fall off, then you are dealing with soft peaks, ideal for making delicate cakes or sponges.

Old cookbooks advise adding a pinch of salt to the whites at the beginning of beating, and a few drops of lemon juice at the end to form a fluffy and voluminous mass. With the advent of modern mixers and blenders, the need to add these products has disappeared, so they can be abandoned. If the recipe calls for adding flour and starch to the protein mass, sift them to saturate them with air so that the dough does not lose its airiness.

It is better to bake meringue on pastry paper at a temperature of 80-110 °C for 1-2 hours. For this reason, the French jokingly call meringues “forgotten cookies,” but try not to forget about your dessert so that it does not become too dry. The finished cakes should be crispy, without a dark crust, and if you prefer more delicate and soft meringues, bake them at 150 ° C until light yellow. You can bake the meringue for several minutes at a temperature of 200 °C, and then reduce the heat to 100 °C and bake for another half hour.

Do not open the oven while the meringues are baking, otherwise they will fall off and turn into cakes. It is better to check the products for readiness after they have cooled, since a warm cake inside may seem damp. Do not store meringues in the refrigerator to prevent them from getting soggy!

Based on meringue, you can prepare many delicious confectionery products with the addition of chocolate, marmalade, jelly, coffee, fruits, berries, curd cheeses, milk, whipped cream, nuts and spices. Meringue is poured with chocolate glaze, served with ice cream, marshmallows, vanilla, butter or butter cream, used as a filling for pancakes and sweet sandwiches, cakes and small petit fours. Meringue cakes are like light clouds that melt in your mouth, leaving a delicately sweet aftertaste that you want to experience again and again. Prepare airy meringues and enjoy magnificent French desserts!

Neuroscientists say that happiness is a physiological illusion into which we fall for very short periods of time. For example, for those couple of minutes while the meringue melts in our mouth. On this page there are 3 meringue recipes and all the secrets of making meringue at home. Each meringue recipe has detailed step-by-step photos.

The first of the three proposed recipes is a basic version of meringue with nuances and cooking tips, followed by two recipes with bells and whistles. As they say, “slowly so that everyone understands.” And so that everyone succeeds, because meringue is a capricious thing.

Meringue is a dessert, a cake made from proteins, which is whipped with sugar until it forms a dense airy mass, after which the mass is laid out in the form of a cone and baked until it has a dense surface and a tender, slightly viscous center.

The nuances of making the perfect meringue at home. The culinary trick for unique meringues is, but baking them is no less important. The oven must be preheated to 150 °C, then we put a baking sheet with meringue there and turn off the oven. The cooking process requires patience - the meringue will be ready when the oven has cooled completely. You can put the meringue in the oven in the evening - for your morning breakfast you will receive an excellent dessert, with the degree of dryness that is characteristic of an ideal protein treat. These are the main tricks of the meringue recipe snow white color from the famous culinary specialist Delia. For more common methods of preparing meringue, see below.

Basic meringue recipe without secrets (English chef Delia’s method)

• 3 eggs (whites only)
• 160 - 175 g sugar or powdered sugar
• citric acid - a pinch
• whisk
• cup or bowl

1. Take 3 fresh eggs; fresh ones make it easier to separate the whites. Separate the whites of each egg separately into a cup or small bowl, and only then transfer the separated whites to a common mixing bowl. Then the awkwardly broken yolk will not mix with the previously separated whites and spoil them. The eggs should be cold, preferably straight from the refrigerator.

2. Sugar is required at the rate of 55-60 g for each egg white. To prepare meringue from three egg whites, weigh 180 g of sugar into a clean, fat-free bowl.
Prepare your mixer and pour some sugar into the bowl with the whites. While beating the whites, you will add sugar, but no more than a tablespoon at a time.
Take your time, gradualness is important in this matter.

3. Turn the whisk on low speed and beat for about 2 minutes until the contents are filled with air bubbles, like champagne in a glass.
For larger quantities of egg whites, the beating time must be increased.
The mass will become thicker and thicker. It won't turn white right away, but it will get closer.
Somewhere in the process, sprinkle granulated sugar and put a pinch of citric acid on it - this is the way to “whiten” the meringue.

4. Beat at medium speed for about a minute, switch the whisk to maximum speed and beat until a dense stage, which is easy to determine: lift the whisk with the whipped whites - at the end they will form a peak that does not fall, retains its shape.
You can check the readiness of the meringue with a spoon - the satin-colored mass should not spread.

5. Spoon the whipped mixture onto parchment paper placed on a baking sheet. Start baking. It is better to bake on low heat so that the meringue does not burn, but the middle is baked. To do this, preheat the oven to 150 °C, place a baking sheet, reduce the temperature to 140 °C, dry the meringue a little, and after 15 minutes turn off the oven.

Important! The finished meringue remains in the oven until completely cooled.

You can do it another way (and this is more common): bake the meringue for about 1-1.5 hours at a temperature of 100 -120°C.

That's it, you have prepared the meringue according to the recipe. I hope it wasn't too difficult and everything worked out for you. Place the meringue on a pretty plate and serve.

Meringue recipe with steamed almonds

But nuts, of course, are not all that can be used to enrich meringue. We will layer the meringues with butter cream - and this is a real “gloss” of taste pleasure. And so that you are not afraid to complicate the meringue, we will steam it - this method gives a 100% guarantee that the meringue will work. According to experts, with the assistance of heat in the form of steam, protein and sugar are bonded almost at the molecular level, so the baking process goes smoothly.

Recipe ingredients

• squirrels - 2
• sugar - 110 grams
• almonds - 36 grams
• vanilla sugar - 2/3 sachets
• Chop the almonds into small pieces

How to make almond meringue

Pour hot water into a wide bowl and place the bowl to beat the whites. The bowl should not touch the water! Only steam will heat our mixture.

Place the whites in a bowl and beat them with a mixer at high speed.

As soon as they begin to thicken, start adding granulated sugar and vanilla sugar.

Continue beating until the whites are glossy and firm (this will take about 10 minutes).

Remove the bowl from the water bath. Stop whisking, add almonds and mix gently.

Place the mixture into the cornet. Holding it vertically, squeeze out any shapes onto a baking sheet covered with parchment: snouts, snails, zigzag stripes, hearts - fantasize and make them.

Place the baking sheet in an oven preheated to 100 degrees. Bake for about an hour.

Butter cream for meringue

We will also make the cream in a water bath.

Ingredients

• butter - 100 grams
• egg - 1
• sugar - 2 tbsp. spoons
• alcohol for flavoring - 2 teaspoons

Instructions

Pour hot water (40 degrees Celsius) into the container. Place another bowl on top and crack the egg into it. Beat it with sugar into a thick meringue.

In another bowl, beat room temperature butter. Continuing to beat, add tbsp. spoon of egg mixture. Add alcohol at the end.

Place the whipped mixture in the refrigerator to cool.

Spread the finished and cooled meringues with cream on the flat side and combine in pairs.

The result is these fantasy, whimsical, curly beauties (the way you “sculpted” them)

Meringue recipe with chocolate and sesame seeds

Recipe ingredients

• squirrels - 2
• sugar - 100 grams
• dark chocolate - 50 grams
• sesame - 35-40 grams
• lemon juice - half a teaspoon (2/3)

Making chocolate sesame meringue

Toast the sesame seeds until light golden brown. Be sure to cool before preparing the meringue.

Coarsely grate the chocolate.

Place the whites in a bowl. Beat them at high speed and as soon as they start to thicken, add lemon juice.

Continuing to beat, add sugar. The protein mass should become very steep. Stop whisking.

Add sesame seeds and stir in gently. Add the chocolate and stir in gently again.

You can form the meringue, as in the previous version, using a cornet, or you can just use a spoon. If you want small balls, then tea; You'll get bigger clouds if you put them in dessert.

Take two spoons - scoop one, and scrape the second from the first.

Place the balls on a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Place in an oven preheated to 150 degrees. Bake for 25 minutes. It is better to cool on a kitchen rack.

The main secrets of making the perfect homemade meringue

Let's summarize briefly. To make the meringue:

Use clean and dry dishes, water in any form is not allowed; It is not even recommended to bake meringues in damp weather;
- you can additionally degrease the dishes by wiping them with a swab dipped in vodka;
- there is an opinion that if you wipe the walls of the mixing bowl with a slice of lemon, the whites will turn out especially fluffy and stiff;
- observe the temperature regime, the meringue is not baked, it is dried; If your oven has a convection function, use it to expel any hint of moisture.

Are meringue and meringue the same thing?

The difference between the two names is in the cooking technology. Experts say that meringue is a thick mass of whipped egg whites and powdered sugar. And it becomes meringue after baking in the oven. Cakes on sale can be found with both, and in both cases the egg-white mass will be subject to heat treatment. Therefore, feel free to choose meringue recipes and meringue recipes (it’s better with a photo, because you can see the appearance), there is no difference between them.

The five most commonly used ingredients in meringue and meringue recipes are:

Today there are three main varieties of meringue:

• French
• Italian
• Swiss

How to make meringue and meringue at home?

The differences, again, are in the cooking technology. The first, French - classic (since the birthplace of this dessert is France). Ingredients: egg whites and sugar, whipped at high speed until stiff. Sometimes adding a pinch of salt is allowed. Feature - French meringue must be used immediately, otherwise it will shrink.

Swiss meringue more stable and “durable” in its raw form. The products are the same, but they should be whipped in a water bath at a temperature of about 50C.

Italian, whipped with the addition of hot sugar syrup instead of sugar or powder. The mass comes out stable and holds its shape well. Easily baked until firm or semi-solid. The ideal decoration is the top part of desserts, when tender flesh is hidden under the “toasted” layer of meringue.

Any of the three can be whipped to soft or hard peaks - depending on the task at hand.

Five of the fastest meringue and meringue recipes:

Meringue means “kiss” in French.

• When whipping the meringue, gradually increase the mixer speed, so the mass will be more airy, but dense
• separate the whites from the yolks carefully so that not even a drop gets in
• thoroughly wash the mixer blades and bowl from grease - the dishes should be crystal clean
• The ideal oven temperature for drying meringue is 100C
• Instead of the oven, you can dry the meringues in a vegetable dryer
• do not overbeat the meringue, otherwise it will become watery
• it doesn’t matter whether you take sugar or powdered sugar - the sugar will dissolve in any case when interacting with raw protein
• use premium eggs, pre-chilled