Sometime in the last decade, meringues morphed from a frothy, slightly naff, 1980s dessert associated principally with Charlene Robinson's wedding dress, to a chic edible accessory; the natural heir to the cupcake craze of the turn of the century, and the macaron of recent years. The great, towering, glossy confections created by Yotam Ottolenghi, so impressive they stop pedestrian traffic outside his north London shop, can be held to some extent responsible – they look about as much like the chalk-white nests of yesteryear as Kylie Minogue resembles that fresh-faced, poodle-permed teenager.
Meringues have the reputation of being difficult to make, but actually, as long as you follow a few cast-iron rules, they're a doddle. (I say that as someone who has disregarded these rules in the past, and paid the price. As with so many baking recipes, creativity with the basics will not pay off here.) Egg whites, beaten to stiff peaks, are obviously a must, plus sugar. But here things get surprisingly complicated for a dish containing just two ingredients.
Stabilisers
One of the golden rules of meringue making is that all of your equipment must be scrupulously clean, without a speck of grease, or it will be much more difficult (although not impossible, as is often claimed, according to the food chemist, Hervé This) to produce the desired foam with your ingredients. Marcus Wareing suggests rubbing your mixer bowl with half a lemon before beginning, to eliminate any last specks of fat before you beat the egg whites, which is an excellent idea. There's nothing sadder than a baking failure.
There are other tricks the cunning chef can employ to improve the chances of achieving a stable foam. The most common is adding a little acid, such as vinegar, more lemon juice, or cream of tartar, to the mixture, after the sugar. According to Larousse Gastronomique, this also helps to make it "crisp on the outside, soft and sticky on the inside".
Using Marcus Wareing's "perfect" recipe as my control, I make two batches of meringues. Both use the whites of 3 large eggs, whisked to soft peaks in the food mixer (unless you're a masoch*st, meringues are not something to be attempted by hand), and 200g caster sugar, added in spoonfuls between the soft and stiff peak stage. One is finished off with a pinch of cream of tartar, as suggested by Leiths Baking Bible, then both are spooned onto lined baking trays, and go into the oven at 100C for an hour and a half, until crisp. The cream of tartar meringues seem to have slightly stiffer peaks, and, when cooked, are more uniformly crunchy.
Sugar
Caster sugar is the usual option for meringues – the small grains dissolve easily in the foamy mixture. However, Angela Nilsen of BBC Good Food magazine has taken this a step further, by using half caster and half icing sugar, which is, of course, even finer. The resulting meringues are very light indeed, but to my mind, taste curiously of sherbet – one-dimensionally sweet. They'd be good for a pavlova, but not as a stand-alone treat. This gives me the idea of using golden caster sugar instead, however, which gives a slightly caramelised flavour, and a lovely golden colour.
Technique
Most recipes call for the sugar only after the whites have been whipped to soft peaks – add it too early and you can kiss goodbye to a good strong foam. Yotam Ottolenghi, the capital's supreme meringue maker, has a different suggestion, however. In his first book, Ottolenghi, he gives a recipe which calls for the sugar to be heated to 100C before being added to very lightly whisked eggs which have "just begun to froth up". The whole is then whisked on top speed for 10 minutes, until the mixture is cool, and holds its shape.
It takes me a couple of goes to master this technique, which is like a cross between a French and an Italian meringue – my sugar keeps caramelising, and thus solidifying in the mixer bowl, but a few sacrificed eggs later, I think I've cracked it. The meringues on the baking tray look magnificent: as craggy and towering as the much-admired originals, but when I take them out of the oven, they've gone an odd shade of orange. They taste good, and they're easier to shape than the traditional recipe but the colour is very definitely off.
Using white sugar improves matters slightly, but they're still not fit for a shop window. (Interestingly, with this recipe, I can't detect a difference using cream of tartar, presumably because the make-up of the foam is slightly different when hot sugar is used.)
Temperature
Advice online suggests that my orange meringues may simply have been on a too high a temperature. Wedging the oven door open with a rolled-up tea towel or a wooden spoon, to prevent it overheating, is apparently one solution. Inconveniently, I seem to have the kind of oven that doesn't much feel like cooking when the door is open, so I'm not sure what to do.
I explain my dilemma to Peter Tar, a pastry chef for Tom Aiken, and meringue connoisseur. He shakes his head. "100C is too high. You need to put them in at 60C, 70C, overnight." You don't cook meringues so much as dry them out, apparently; evaporating the water to leave only the rigid structure of the egg and sugar mix, and the air bubbles in between. I try Ottolenghi's method, in the oven at its lowest setting, leave them for six hours, and the results are positively snowy. I feel extremely proud of myself: a proper meringue is a beautiful thing.
Conclusion
Meringues need clean equipment, good sugar, and, most important of all, a low oven. If you don't have an oven thermometer, and you suspect your oven is too hot, try turning it down to the coolest setting, and leaving the meringues to it. They're too good to hurry.
Perfect meringues – with thanks to Yotam Ottolenghi
Makes about 10 large ones.
300g caster sugar (golden if you prefer a more caramelised flavour and colour)
5 eggs, whites only, at room temperature
Lemon slice (optional)
1. Heat the oven to 200C. Spread the sugar over an oven tray lined with baking parchment and cook until it has just begun to melt at the edges, but not caramelise (about 8 minutes).
2. Meanwhile, crack the eggs, being careful not to drop any yolk into your whites. If you lose any bits of shell, scoop them out with a clean spoon rather than your fingers.
3. Wipe the inside of your mixing bowl, and the whisk, with the cut side of the lemon and add the eggs. As soon as you spot the sugar beginning to melt at the edges, set the mixer to whisk at high speed while you take the sugar out of the oven.
4. The mixture should be just foamy by the time you add the sugar. Wearing oven gloves, pick up the baking parchment with oven gloves and tip the hot sugar slowly into the still-whisking mixer. Continue whisking until the mixture has cooled, and is glossy and will hold its shape. Turn the oven down to its lowest setting.
5. If you want to fold through any spices or other flavourings, or roll the meringues in nuts or another topping, this is your moment – but they'll be pretty good as they are.
6. Line a baking tray with parchment, and spoon the meringue on in great gorgeous blobs – remember they'll increase in size as they dry out. Put them into the oven and bake until they are crisp on the outside, and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom: depending on their size, this could take six hours, so don't wait up.
7. Turn the oven off and leave them in there until it has cooled, then immediately transfer to an air-tight container.
Meringues – are they the sweetest of treats, or a pointlessly pretty waste of time? What are your favourite flavourings and toppings: can anything beat whipped cream and sour berries?
