The Truth about Meringues2

Recipes abound, but let’s get right down to basics:

Crisp, Crunch, snow-white meringues are really just sugar dried out!

The mixture is based on finely-ground sugar and egg-white to hold it all together.

You’ve read the caveats, but go back and re-read those recipes and you’ll see that we are using egg-white to bind sugar and then just drying the mixture out, very slowly.

Oven temperatures are quoted, but my mother cooked them on the kitchen table in Southern Cross ; it was hot enough in summer!

We are cautioned to keep everything absolutely grease-free; presumably fats affect the binding ability of egg-whites?

The egg-whites should be separated from the yolks cold, but then allowed thirty minutes to reach room temperature.

Pre-heating the sugar in the oven is sometimes advised.

Castor sugar is preferred to regular grain sugar, but then, oughtn’t icing sugar be even better?

Vanilla and other flavors are optional.

Again:

“Dried sugar held together with egg whites” is our guiding principle.

With all that in Mind ...

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