Here are the 4 meringues recipes that I love the most and I often prepare. They are very simple to make, but it’s very important to keep in mind 2 rules while preparing the meringue: always use eggs at room temperature and use a perfectly dry and clean bowl to mix the egg yolks.
Let me know if you try any of my recipes and if you like them 🙂
The meringue
Ingredients
- Little meringues
- egg whites: 100 grams
- caster sugar: 100 grams
- icing sugar: 100 grams
- Crunchy meringue
- egg whites: 250 grams
- caster sugar: 500 grams
- Soft meringue ideal for lemon meringue pie
- egg whites: 500 grams
- caster sugar: 800 grams
- lemon (the filtered juice): 1
- Italian meringue
- caster sugar for the syrup: 400 grams
- water for the syrup: 100 grams
- egg whites: 250 grams
- caster sugar: 250 grams
- lemon (freshly gratedzest) optional: 1
Instructions
- For the little meringues: startbeating the egg whites in the food processor with the balloon whisk, when frothy start adding all the icing sugar and a third of caster sugar. Continue to beat for a couple of minutes then add another third of sugar and mix at high speed until you have a smooth and firm mixture. Fold in the remaining sugar using a rubber spatula. Transfer the meringue into a piping bag with a round or a star nozzle and form the meringues on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and dusted with icing sugar.Bake in the preheated oven at 150°C for 10 minutes then reduce the temperature to 90°C and bake for 2 hours.
- For the crunchy meringue: beat the egg whites until frothy then add the sugar a spoon at a time. The meringue is ready when smooth, shiny and fluffy. At this point you can also add edible colours. Put the mixture into a piping bag, form the meringues on a baking tray lined with baking parchment and bake into the preheated oven at 100°C for 2 hours.
- For the soft meringue: beat the egg whites and after a couple of minutes add the half of the sugar and the lemon juice. Mix until you have a firm and smooth mixture then fold in the remaining sugar using a rubber spatula. Decorate the lemon meringue pie and bake at 140°C until it starts to become golden and increase the temperature to 170°C for the last minutes until completely golden.
- For the Italian meringue: prepare the syrup putting the sugar and the water into a heavy bottomed saucepan, cook for 7 minute. Beat the egg whites, the sugar and the zest until firm then add the syrup while mixing until the mixture will be shiny and fluffy.
Notes
You can add 30 grams of chopped walnuts to the little meringues during the final step, when you are adding the sugar using the spatula. They are delicious paired together with dark chocolate ganache. The crunchy meringue is perfect to prepare the Marengo cake that is made of 2 meringue discs filled with double cream and chocolate chips. It is also good for making colourful meringues (see the photos) or decorative meringues such as little meringue mushrooms. The soft meringue should stay into the oven for as little as possible, just to become nice and golden. It is perfect also for making the Pavlova or for preparing soft meringues filled with cream or custard, delicious with coffee and tea. The Italian meringue is recommended for filling cakes and, if you really are a meringue lover, it's delicious eaten with the spoon as a dessert. I strongly suggest to use the lemon zest because it gives a fresh note to the meringue. The hot syrup could be very dangerous so don't prepare this recipe with kids to avoid incidents.
