Problems with meringues
Those of us that have made meringues know what a pain they can be. They can crack, burn on the outside and be soggy on the inside or just be pale, soggy and uninteresting.
At work we used to make probably 100 at a time and we didn't even use an oven. We had a large hotplate cupboard and we left them in there to dry out for more than 24 hours. That is probably the key to a good meringue, low temperature for a long time, if you wnat them powdery and crumbly and not chewy on the inside. If the temperature is too hot the outside will be hard and brown but the inside will still hold too much moisture and so this will make your meringues soggy again by the time they are cooled. The next thing is is once they are dry they need to be kept dry, or again they will go soft.
When making meringues you need to make sure that all equipment is squeaky clean, any trace of fat and the egg whites will not whip up to stiff peaks. To make sure the bowl is clean you can wipe everything with lemong juice to make extra sure all traces of fat have gone.
When whipping egg whites you need to take them to a point where the peaks will stay up when the whisk is taken out of the bowl and the bowl can be turned upside down over your head without you getting covered in egg whites!
To be perfectly honest there are loads of recipes for meringues out there, and even I use websites to find ones that work the best, so here's my tip for a wbsite with a decent recipe.
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2445/ultimate-meringue
The BBC good food site is a good source of inspriation for a lot of the basic recipes you will need and I am a member and I save my recipes in the recipe binder on there. If something works, why not use it I say!
Let me know what you think :o)
Happy cooking x
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