I made meringues today, but used a Martha Stewart recipe online because most of my stuff is in storage, so haven't...
I made meringues today, but used a Martha Stewart recipe online because most of my stuff is in storage, so haven't got the recipe I usually use, which is a basic, old, Williams-Sonoma one or a variation on it. It sort of worked, but the Stewart one made twice as many meringues as it said it would, took forever to dry, and was much too sweet. It was very glossy, though.
I can surmise that it maybe didn't expect people to be as effective at whipping volume into the whites, so maybe that accounts for the very different number of meringues. This is overall a much less humid climate than I had been baking in, and it's not a humid day today, this oven has been fine with other things, but I haven't specifically used it at low temp before, so maybe it is not as precise at low temp. Then again, this is a much better quality oven than what I've used before, so it should be better, not worse. I have no idea why it was almost impossible to dry the meringues. Lastly, my only understanding of sugar in meringues is that you can affect the hard/soft aspect by adjusting the amount of sugar, but I have never noticed a significant difference in sweetness from one hard meringue to another. Since I don't have the other recipe, I can't directly compare the proportions. I did not like how sweet these were.
Other things I noticed - the meringue had a weird quality of holding its shape, but sort of softening and slumping at the same time. It never lost its peaks, but they got sort of not sharply defined. Again, not a hot or humid day. Plus, using a Swiss meringue, rather than a French one, should have made it more, not less, stable (involves heating the sugar and egg whites, rather than doing this completely cold). It was like the edges of the peaks were almost about to melt a little. I've pretty much always used the cheap plastic bag trick, rather than fancy pastry bags with tips, but today made me feel like if I want a precise result, maybe the fancy tools are the way to go. Of course, the plastic bag thing always worked before, so, you know. Basically, I want my old recipe back, or a different new one. Unless you want to make something that tastes like marshmallows. In which case, this really, really tasted like marshmallows and you should totally use it. Not sure what I'm gonna do with all the extra meringues I ended up with, since I think they're too sweet.
I can surmise that it maybe didn't expect people to be as effective at whipping volume into the whites, so maybe that accounts for the very different number of meringues. This is overall a much less humid climate than I had been baking in, and it's not a humid day today, this oven has been fine with other things, but I haven't specifically used it at low temp before, so maybe it is not as precise at low temp. Then again, this is a much better quality oven than what I've used before, so it should be better, not worse. I have no idea why it was almost impossible to dry the meringues. Lastly, my only understanding of sugar in meringues is that you can affect the hard/soft aspect by adjusting the amount of sugar, but I have never noticed a significant difference in sweetness from one hard meringue to another. Since I don't have the other recipe, I can't directly compare the proportions. I did not like how sweet these were.
Other things I noticed - the meringue had a weird quality of holding its shape, but sort of softening and slumping at the same time. It never lost its peaks, but they got sort of not sharply defined. Again, not a hot or humid day. Plus, using a Swiss meringue, rather than a French one, should have made it more, not less, stable (involves heating the sugar and egg whites, rather than doing this completely cold). It was like the edges of the peaks were almost about to melt a little. I've pretty much always used the cheap plastic bag trick, rather than fancy pastry bags with tips, but today made me feel like if I want a precise result, maybe the fancy tools are the way to go. Of course, the plastic bag thing always worked before, so, you know. Basically, I want my old recipe back, or a different new one. Unless you want to make something that tastes like marshmallows. In which case, this really, really tasted like marshmallows and you should totally use it. Not sure what I'm gonna do with all the extra meringues I ended up with, since I think they're too sweet.
If there's that much extra sweetness, it is possibly that they hydroscopic nature of the sugar was pulling in extra moisture, even with relatively low humidity, which I think would account for just about all the problems you described. As for what to do with them, you could make little meringue sandwich cookie with some dark chocolate ganache, or something particularly tart - whatever you think would cut the sweetness (which is nice because each one would use 2), or you could line/layer in a parfait or trifle with a nice pastry cream and fresh fruit . . . .
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