Misha's Meringue Malaise - was, Re: [Sca-cooks] Newby to the list

[Pixel, Queen of Cats]

On Fri, 6 Jul 2001 XvLoverCrimvX at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 7/6/01 10:53:16 AM Eastern Daylight Time, troy at asan.com
> writes:
>
> > So, are we talking about complete failure to puff up and turn white in
> >  the beating stage, or did they somehow cook wrong? What kind of mint
> >  flavoring did you use? Oven temp? Cooking time? Are you sure the bowl
> >  was clean, free of all fat, including yolks? Is it very humid where you
> live?
> >
> >
> >  Insufficient data...
>
> > Also, what kind of bowl? Plastic, metal, glass? Plastic can have scratches
> >  which hide fat or soap, which will also cause your whites to not beat
> >  up. What else did you put in besides mint flavor and sugar?
> >
> >  If it failed in the baking stage, how did you shape it, and how thick did
> >  you make it?
>
> Okay. No the eggs were fine and did puff up. They soon started to get warm
> and I was worried so I put them on ice. My experience with meringues is that
> they are sort of crunchy and easily melted with water. These were soft and
> mushy. I cooked them about 350 degrees until they got a little brown. It can
> be humid in Va because it has its days. And the bowl was clean of all egg
> yolks and fat. And all I put in it was mint flavoring and sugar. I shaped it
> about one regular spoon shape. I also used a metal bowl.
>
> Misha

My thoughts (and Adamantius will correct me if I'm way off ;-))

1/ Oven too hot. You want to very slowly bake them so they are cooked
before they start to brown--more like 200F. Slow and gentle. Higher temps
are to brown it quickly, like if you're making a meringue pie, without
drying out the meringue or even really heating the pie filling.

2/ You need to leave them in the oven to dry out, possibly overnight. Try
baking them at ~200 for an hour, then turn the oven off and leave them in
there for another 2 or 3 hours. Try very hard to not open the oven door
until at least three hours have gone by.

Having the AC on to counteract the humidity is probably a good thing as
well. Grandpa just never bothered doing anything with dry meringues in the
summer in Chicago--way too humid.


Margaret FitzWilliam