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Meringue desserts can be served alone or with other foods, and can be flavored with vanilla extract or cocoa powder. Cooking time and temperature determine whether meringue is hard or soft. French, Swiss, and Italian meringue are made differently, and beating egg whites and adding sugar is key to meringue formation.
Meringue desserts can be served on their own, such as forgot cookies, which are made from meringue that’s simmered in the oven. Additionally, meringue desserts can be made alongside other foods, such as the meringue topping on some pies or the baked meringue shell that covers baked Alaska. To add more variety to meringue desserts, a cook can add flavorings to the meringue mixture, using ingredients such as vanilla extract or cocoa powder before cooking the meringue, or combine syrups or fruit on the meringue once it has been cooked. crush.
When meringue desserts are made, they can be hard or soft. Changing the meringue cooking time and cooking temperature determines whether the meringue is soft or hard. Hard meringues are crunchy and dry, instead of having the creamy texture of soft meringue desserts. Lowering the temperature and increasing the baking time produces a tough meringue, like what makes up the Forgotten Cookies, that a cook might even leave in the oven overnight, after the oven has been turned off. Cooking the meringue at a high temperature for a short amount of time makes it soft, with browned ridges on the outside of the meringue, like meringue toppings on pies or the meringue that covers the inside of forgotten Alaskan ice cream.
There are three basic ways to create meringue desserts, with each method coming from a different country of origin. French meringue is the easiest to make, as the cook combines egg whites and refined sugar, beating them until the mixture stiffens. Swiss meringue is also made of sugar and egg whites, which the cook whisks while heating the mixture in a double boiler or water bath on a stovetop, stopping once the sugar dissolves completely. A cook prepares Italian meringue by boiling sugar and water together, then combines the mixture with egg whites that he has already beaten until puffy. The cook then beats the egg whites and sugar syrup together until stiff.
The beating process of a meringue is essential to its formation, as doing so stretches the protein molecules in the egg whites. Adding sugar is key to allowing the meringue to hold its shape long-term, as sugars make egg whites stiff and hold their puffy shape. The sugar combined with the meringues must dissolve completely before the meringue is cooked, otherwise it will have a grainy texture even after the meringue is cooked.
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