The blog of cooking-ez.com
The 3 kinds of meringue
18,5813.6/5
Last modified on: June 14th 2013
The 3 kinds of meringue
But in the world of professional patisserie, meringue comes in three different kinds. Even if the principle is the same (egg whites + sugar), the results are quite distinct and lend themselves to different uses.
French meringue
This is the simplest, the easiest to make, your basic meringue. The egg whites are beaten until stiff, then caster sugar (50 g per egg white) is folded in. It's not difficult, you can let children help (they love it) and this makes very light, fluffy meringues.
Swiss meringue
The method for this is a bit different: the egg whites and caster sugar are mixed together at the start , then heated to 50°C over a bain marie before beating. This makes rather denser meringues, the sort often used to make decorative items (mushrooms, etc.) to add a finishing touch to desserts and cakes (Christmas logs, for example). If you buy meringues from a French baker, they are generally the Swiss type.
Italian meringue
Italian meringue is the most complicated: the egg whites are beaten as usual, but the sugar is cooked to the hard-ball stage (120°C) before being added to the egg whites. This makes a very smooth meringue, often used as the base for other recipes, such as nougat glacé (frozen nougat) or a meringue tart.
To sum up
As you can see, it's all a matter of temperature (well, almost), as the basic mix of egg whites and sugar is the same. Do remember, though, that even if a particular meringue is better suited to certain recipes, in practice, you can choose whichever type suits you.
Lasts posts
The 3 essential knivesYou must have heard a chef or cook say: "There’s no good cooking without good ingredients". This is very true, of course, but for any amateur or beginner it is equipment that really counts to start with. What I mean is that you should not skimp on [Read more...]
Using stretch food film effectivelyMaybe you use food film in your own kitchen. You know, the very thin, clear plastic stuff that you can stretch, often used to cover food and protect it from the air. It’s become so widely used that it’s now an essential item for pros. They even [Read more...]
The mock CAP baker's certificate examThe next instalment in my life as an apprentice baker at the French INBP professional school. I’m now halfway through training and it’s still as exciting as ever, and exhausting – but maybe I’m just getting old, or both… Anyway, a few days [Read more...]
Rosemary in recipesRosemary, as I’m sure you know, is a culinary herb: It is one of the famous French "herbes de Provence", and is very effective in bringing a real taste of the Mediterranean to any dish. The classic way to use it in a recipe is to add a [Read more...]
The Holy Grail of French bakersWhile browsing through the recipes on this site, you may have noticed that while I adore cooking (everything, in fact, to do with eating and drinking), I am particularly drawn to bakery: bread, viennoiseries and all that goes with them – it’s a [Read more...]
Is it really necessary to cream egg yolks?Let’s try and answer a question that crops up in cookery and patisserie, even if it verges on the existential: do the egg yolks in a custard recipe really need to be beaten until pale, or not? You might already have noticed in many recipes [Read more...]
Egg yolks and caster sugarWe often come across recipes where we need to mix egg yolks with caster sugar. This would appear to be a very ordinary and simple thing to do but, be warned, these two ingredients can behave oddly together. Let’s take confectioner's custard [Read more...]
The golden-brown finish on puff pastryLet's take a look at the tricky matter of producing puff pastry with an attractive, golden-brown finish. French pastry chefs call this "dorure" (literally, "gilding"). Behind this quirky term there lurks a real problem (and the solution): when [Read more...]
Other articles
visitors have also looked at
|
|
|
|
|
Post your comment or question
You are welcome, if you wish, to comment on this page: why you like it or not, what you have changed, what results it gave, point out a mistake or omission, etc. You can also ask a question. I answer all questions (in a broken English, sorry) unless someone else does it before me.
Please feel free to say what you think, I'm always very interested in your opinion. Your comment will appear on line with the page, so please write in standard readable English, not SIM or only in CAPITALS, otherwise your comment may be rejected.
Please look at advice for submitting a comment or image (what you should or should not do). By the way, don't type your e-mail address in the comment, otherwise you might be spammed.