Cooked Meringue, Italian and Swiss

Icing & frosting 17 recipes

• The temperatures were chosen, not defaulted: the bake fully cool where the finish is meant to sit on top of it, or both deliberately warm where the method wants the two to fuse, and the proof either way is a finish that stayed where it was put.
• Smooth on the tongue: no grit of undissolved sugar and no lumps of anything that was never fully worked in.
• The consistency matches the job: it spreads or pours the way the method intends, then holds the edge, swirl, or drip it was given.
• The surface underneath is intact: covered rather than scrubbed, with no crumbs dragged through the finish and no torn patches showing.
• By serving it has settled into the finish the method wants (matte, glossy, or soft) and a cut comes away clean rather than pulling the top off with it.

Where it goes wrong A finish meant to sit on top went on while the bake was still warm. The layer that touched first melted, slid, and soaked in; what is left sets greasy and streaked, and no amount of chilling afterwards puts that finish back.

Whipping a meringue 40 recipes

• Bowl and whisk are clean and dry with no trace of fat or yolk. Grease prevents the foam outright, and there is no recovering a bowl that had it partway through.
• The sugar went in gradually once the whites were already foaming, rather than all at once at the start.
• No grit: a little rubbed between finger and thumb feels smooth, so the sugar has dissolved into the foam rather than sitting in it.
• Stiff peaks means the tip stands with a slight bow when the whisk lifts, and the bowl can be tipped without the mass moving in it.
• Glossy and smooth rather than chalky or dull, with no liquid gathering underneath it in the bowl.

Where it goes wrong It was whipped past stiff peaks. A minute beyond glory the protein network tightens and tears, the foam turns grainy and matte, water weeps out beneath it, and folding that into anything gives a mixture that collapses on the way to the oven.