Meringue is a delicate dessert created by experienced European culinary specialists. Today, like many centuries ago, it is very popular among all lovers of sweets. By the way, any housewife can easily cook it in ordinary home cooking. How to make meringue so that the result is a perfect airy dessert? There may be several options.

Classic meringue in the oven

Before starting work, you need to understand for yourself what is meringue.

Dessert is egg whites, whipped in a dense foam with sugar. The prepared mass is molded, and then subjected to heat treatment. Typically, the workpieces are dried in the oven.

To make meringues correctly, you will need:

  • 3 egg whites
  • 1 pinch of salt;
  • 250 grams of sugar.

Meringues in the oven at home should be prepared in stages:

  1. First, breaking eggs into a plate, gently separate the proteins. Yolks can be removed to the side, as in this recipe they will no longer be needed.
  2. Beat whites with a mixer, gradually increasing the speed of rotation of the nozzles. The mass will begin to bubble first, and over time, a small, but quite lush foam will form.
  3. Without stopping vigorous stirring, add sugar in portions. You should not rush here. The next portion should be added only when the sugar in the total mass is completely dissolved. The mixture should be thick, slightly viscous and have a nice glossy shade.
  4. Cover the baking sheet with parchment.
  5. Next, the products need to be shaped. This can be done with a regular spoon or use a special confectionery syringe (or bag).
  6. Place workpieces directly on parchment. It is not necessary to pre-treat it with oil.
  7. Preheat the oven to 110 degrees.
  8. Send a baking sheet with blanks for at least one hour.

You can check the readiness by touching the products with your finger. If their surface is hard enough, the fire must be turned off.

Steamed in a slow cooker

Today, many housewives use a multicooker for cooking. It turns out that with its help you can also make excellent meringues.

According to the recipe for this, you need to take:

  • 1 cup of sugar;
  • 2 eggs;
  • 10 milliliters of sunflower oil;
  • a pinch of citric acid.

How to cook meringues using a slow cooker:

  1. Squirrels separate from yolks.
  2. Beat them with a mixer along with a lemon in a strong foam.
  3. Slowly adding sugar, continue mixing at maximum speed.
  4. Process the bottom of the multicooker bowl with oil.
  5. Put on it blanks in the form of "roses" or "snails" with a pastry syringe or a simple tablespoon.
  6. Set the "Baking" mode. Cook an hour and a half. In this case, do not close the lid. Otherwise, steam will constantly accumulate inside and the products will not be able to dry. Therefore, contrary to the advice of some cooks, it is not recommended to cook such a dessert “for a couple”.

After the sound signal, the multicooker should be turned off and wait for the products to cool completely. Meringues are snow-white and crispy. True, tearing them from the bottom of the bowl will not be easy.

With strawberry

Fans of original desserts can be offered to cook meringues in the form of air nests stuffed with fresh strawberries.

For this option, you will need:

  • 120 grams of sugar;
  • 2 egg whites.

For filling:

  • strawberry berries;
  • powdered sugar.

Everything is done very simply:

  1. Place the egg whites in a chilled dish and beat until the mass turns into a stable foam. The container must be perfectly dry and clean.
  2. Continuing to beat, slowly inject sugar. Gradually, the mixture will turn into a smooth and fairly dense mass, which will not drain from the whisk.
  3. Put it in a pastry bag and fix the nozzle in the form of an asterisk on the tip.
  4. On a baking sheet covered with parchment, deposit the blanks by drawing flat spirals. Leave a small distance between the products so that they do not stick together.
  5. Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 1 hour at 150 degrees. Then turn off the fire and leave the workpiece in the chamber for another 35 minutes, opening the door.
  6. Rinse the berries and tear off their sepals. Gently cut the fruit into slices.
  7. Lay pieces of strawberries on each "nest" and sprinkle with powder on top.

It is better to eat such a dessert immediately, until the juice from the berries has saturated the crispy meringue.

Meringue in the microwave

When cooking time is limited, a microwave comes to the aid of the housewives. This unit can handle any job in minutes.

To prepare meringues you will need only 2 ingredients in the following ratio:

  • 1 egg
  • 270 grams of powdered sugar.

How to make meringue in the microwave:

  1. Pour the powder into a deep bowl.
  2. Separate the protein from the yolk.
  3. Add it to the powder and rub it thoroughly for 5 minutes. The mass is soft and very smooth. It is impossible to achieve this with a mixer.
  4. Cover the plate with baking paper.
  5. Put on it blanks from the prepared mass with a spoon or syringe.
  6. Put the plate in the oven and set the power to 750 watts. Literally in 60 - 90 seconds, the meringues will be ready.

For the products to "ripen", they need to stand inside the chamber for about 1 more minute. Only then can the door be opened.

Chocolate Meringue at Home

Some people prefer a popular airy dessert with chocolate flavor.

This is not difficult to do if available:

  • 100 grams of granulated sugar;
  • squirrels of two eggs;
  • 50 grams of dark chocolate.

To make meringue, in this case you will need:

  1. Separate the whites from the yolks.
  2. Place them in a clean dish and refrigerate for 1 hour.
  3. After this time, beat the whisk with whisk. Mass should gradually double.
  4. Without stopping the whipping, slowly introduce sugar.
  5. Heat the chocolate in a water bath.Alternatively, it can be placed in a plastic bag, first broken into pieces, and then put in a pan with hot water for several minutes.
  6. Add warm chocolate to the proteins and mix gently with a spatula so that the mass does not settle. The mixer in this case does not need to be used.
  7. Put the mixture with a pastry bag onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper.
  8. Billet to dry in the oven for an hour at 130 degrees.

After this, wait until the products have completely cooled down. Only then will they be easy to remove from the pan. The result is an unusually delicious airy cake with a pleasant chocolate aroma.

Cooking a Wet Dessert

To decorate cakes and other confectionery products, so-called “wet” meringues are often used. In fact, it is a gentle, but fairly dense protein cream.

 

They can cover the surface of finished products or use for the manufacture of decorative figures (flowers). How to make meringue “wet”?

To do this, you will need almost the same components as always:

  • 2 eggs;
  • a quarter of a teaspoon “lemons”;
  • 100 grams of sugar.

In this case, a slightly different technology is used:

  1. First, as usual, the proteins must be separated from the yolks.
  2. Pour them into clean dishes.
  3. Pour sugar there and mix the products with a regular fork. To make the mass beat better later, you can add a little bit of fine salt.
  4. Cook a steam bath. To do this, put the container on a pan with hot water. However, it should not touch the liquid.
  5. Put the pan on the stove. Beat the egg mass with a mixer for 5 - 6 minutes at high speeds. As soon as it is sufficiently compacted, add a lemon.
  6. Remove the container from the pan and continue whisking for about 3 to 4 minutes. The result is a glossy cream with a fairly dense consistency.
  7. The mass can be deposited on a baking sheet in a known manner or made into openwork "flowers" using nozzles.
  8. Dry in the oven for 1.5 hours at 100 degrees.

Even after baking, the meringues remain a little malleable. Perhaps that is why dessert is called "wet."

Meringue on a stick

For a children's holiday, meringues can be made on a stick. Kids from such an original dessert will be delighted.

To work you need:

  • 3 eggs;
  • 170 grams of powdered sugar;
  • 3 grams of citric acid.
  • thin wooden sticks.

How to make meringue on a stick:

  1. Break eggs over a bowl and gently separate the yolks.
  2. Beat the remaining proteins with a mixer at low speed. The mass will gradually increase.
  3. It is desirable to grind sugar on a coffee grinder. You can immediately take the finished powder.
  4. Add it to the eggs and continue whipping, gradually increasing speed.
  5. So only the mass will become dense enough, fill up the "lemon". Beat after that for another 3 minutes at maximum speed.
  6. Put a shiny dense mass on a baking sheet lined with parchment and a spoon.
  7. Drown inside each blank one stick.
  8. Bake products in the oven at 100 degrees for about 60 minutes.

It is better to remove products from the baking sheet only after they have completely cooled down.

The subtleties of making perfect meringues

Getting to work, each housewife must study in advance all the subtleties of this, at first glance, a simple process. How to make meringues so that the products are of good quality?

To do this, remember several important rules:

  1. Dishes and all tools (spoon, whisk) should be perfectly clean and fat free. Otherwise, the whipping procedure will be difficult.
  2. In most cases, experts advise using warm eggs (about 20 degrees). To do this, you need to get them out of the refrigerator in advance or hold the separated proteins in a bowl for 6 - 7 minutes over dishes with hot water.
  3. Sugar is better to take fine. So it will dissolve faster. In addition, the presence of a large number of small particles improves whipping.Ideally, it is better to use powdered sugar.
  4. Beating should begin at low speed. So proteins are saturated with air as much as possible. As soon as the mass begins to foam, the speed can be increased.
  5. To make the meringue crispy, whisk the whites to hard “peaks”. The mass must be dense, stable and not run off the whisk.
  6. Sugar should not be added immediately, but gradually, as it dissolves.
  7. Strictly observe the temperature regime.

Knowing these subtleties will turn the process of making meringue into a pleasant procedure that does not require special efforts from the hostess.

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