make firm meringues suitable for the pastry
pipe on the kitchen equivalent of autopilot.
They place all the sugar in the bowl of a stand
mixer, add a portion of the egg whites with
some lemon juice to prevent graining, mix for
several minutes — the timing is not critical
— then add more whites, mix a while, and so
on. The result is a fine-textured, stiff, supple
meringue. Beating the eggs gradually into the
sugar rather than the other way around does
slow the foaming, but requires little
supervision. Such “automatic” meringues are
denser than usual and less brittle when dried
down.
Food Words: Meringue
Thanks to the Larousse Gastronomique,
it’s widely believed that the meringue was
invented by a pastry chef in the Swiss town
of Mieringen around 1720, and brought to
France a couple of decades later by the
Polish father-in-law of Louis XV. Sounds