Extra housewives always remain with those housewives who are fond of cooking desserts and pastries. Where to put a large amount of protein? Of course, let them cook meringues. After all, it is this air cake with a delicate crisp that will not leave indifferent any sweet tooth.
Refined delicacy
Meringues have a lot of names, but they all embody something gentle, weightless, light. From the French language, this word translates as "tender kiss." Pre-revolutionary Russia knew the airy meringue cake as the “Spanish wind." Quite often, this dessert is called "meringues." Meringue, as many cookbooks say, is just a protein cream, but a dried protein cream with a crispy crust is already a meringue.
But whatever the name of this dessert, in whatever country it is prepared, you will not find a strong difference between the recipes. The composition of the cake is quite simple: protein and granulated sugar. However, an airy cake made of proteins is a rather fragile and capricious substance, which sometimes brings a lot of disappointments and unpleasant surprises to an inexperienced chef.
Experienced chefs advise beginners if they want to cook meringues at home, do not immediately run to the refrigerator and do not get eggs from the tray. To begin with, one should “arm” oneself with theoretical knowledge, learn some secrets of cooking, and then proceed directly to sculpting a culinary masterpiece.
Ways to make meringue
You can cook many dishes at home, including an air cake. You will find a recipe with a photo in our article. Today we will open some cooking secrets that will surely be useful for beginner housewives.
French way
So, there are several popular ways to make meringue. The simplest of these is the French method. It can be used in cases where it is not required to make an air cake of some ornate complex shapes. The French version involves beating chilled egg whites to a cool foam with a pinch of salt. Sugar is added only in the final stage of preparation. The protein mass in this case is quite lush. Hard peaks are a symbol of the correct consistency of meringue cream.
Italian way
Italian chefs have come up with a slightly different way of making meringues. After you beat the chilled proteins, you should add not ordinary sugar to them, but sugar syrup prepared in advance. It turns out that with a steep, almost boiling syrup, you make proteins, and then they will not fall off when baked. Such a protein cream is perfect for making complex forms of cakes, as well as for layering cakes. In addition, the Italian version allows you to add butter if you need to prepare a cream for the cake. The French version, when combined with fats, will flow.
Swiss way
The most dense and persistent airy meringue cake is obtained from Swiss chefs. But this method is considered the most time-consuming and lengthy, since a water bath is involved in the preparation. But if you have the patience to make meringues in a water bath according to the Swiss method, then you can easily draw the ornate patterns on the cakes with the cream obtained, put it on unusual shapes of cookies. Such a cream will not fall off, will not fail when baking, it will not leak.
Essential Ingredients
- Protein from five eggs.
- 250 grams of granulated sugar.
- A pinch of salt or a teaspoon of lemon juice.
Cooking process
Prepared dishes, ingredients. We start whipping the squirrels. Add a pinch of salt or citric acid. Beat at a slow speed until small air bubbles appear. Gradually add powdered sugar to the mass. We continue the manipulation until the cream is sufficiently thick. It should not slide from the whisk, there should be, as the cooks call it, hard peaks.
We prepare a baking sheet, line it with oiled paper. You can plant meringues both with the help of a special confectionery syringe, and with the help of an ordinary tablespoon.
Preheat the oven to 80-100 degrees. Depending on the size and thickness of the cakes, they should be baked from one and a half to two hours. When the meringues are ready, do not rush to remove them from the pan. Let the dish cool slightly. When the cakes have cooled, gently lift them above the sheet and remove.
Cooking secrets
So, you have chosen for yourself a convenient and acceptable way to prepare meringues. Now it remains to learn a few secrets, the knowledge of which will help even an inexperienced housewife to create an exquisite, airy culinary miracle.
- Beginning the preparation of meringues, remember that proteins must always be fresh.
- When you cook an air cake at home, try to break each egg over a separate dish. Of course, they promised you in the store that the eggs are freshest, but sometimes incidents happen. Agree, it will be very unpleasant if one smelling “something” is added to four good proteins. Work is ruined, start over. Do you need it ?!
- In order for sugar to dissolve faster in a protein cream, first grind it into fine powder. You can buy and finished 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 during whipping. But experienced experts advise nevertheless to give preference to citric acid or lemon juice. If you take acid, then for our recipe you will need one teaspoon of citric acid, diluted in two teaspoons of water.
- The rule of thumb is, if you want to make the perfect airy meringue cake, use only clean (very clean!) Dishes and whisks. The tools used should not have a hint of fat or other impurities.
- To get the perfect meringue out, use this trick. On a baking sheet, spread special baking paper on which to draw even circles first. When you apply the cream with a syringe, it will be easier for you to make all the cakes even and the same.