More Meringue Madness
I tasted my first Meringue Glacé decades ago in Castelnaudary, that French town on the Canal du Midi, renowned for its Cassoulet. I was so full of Cassoulet I should not have even glanced at the dessert menu, but I couldn’t resist the Meringue Glacé. When it came, what was it anyway? Plain-as-can-be meringues with plain vanilla ice cream and plain whipped cream (or maybe it was crème fraîche). But it was so good I remember it now, 40 years later. I’m sure the Cassoulet was nice too, but I don’t recall a a thing about that part of the meal.
The simplest meringue with ice cream and whipped cream still entices me. But I can’t always stop there: a garnish of juicy berries and warm bittersweet chocolate sauce produces even more drama and contrast: hot with cold, creamy with crunchy, sweet with bittersweet. If you turn the meringue into Pavlova, you can also get chewy with gooey!
I love that meringues—simple cookies or elements of a more complex dessert— are easy make and easy to play with. Over the years, I have tried all kinds of inclusions, treatments, embellishments, and flavors, from bananas to bacon (including bananas andbacon). Some of my results are amazing (if I do say), others not so much.
A few of the things I have added to meringues over the decades are:
Espresso powder: very nice
Nuts, raw or toasted, chopped and/or ground: obviously great
Roasted salted nuts with or w/o chopped milk chocolate: terrific
Thai curry peanuts:not as good as I had hoped
Salt and pepper cashews: not as good as I had hoped
Cocoa power: nice enough
Cocoa nibs: good when lots are added otherwise they taste bitter and feel gritty
Chopped chocolate:what’s not to love?
Candied citrus peels: dries out and become too hard to chew
Grated citrus peel: dries out and becomes too hard
Pulverized freeze dried fruit: banana (with or without pecans or coconut) was especially good, as was pineapple (with or without coconut) are especially good
Dried jamiaca blossoms (aka jamaica tea): still a work in progress
Amchur powder: interesting
Tahini: yummy
Peanut butter:fantastic, also almond butter, cashew butter etc.
Peanut butter and jam: good, but a little too sweet
Coconut: always great
Bacon with toasted pecans and milk chocolate: Delish! Recipe to come.
Organic powdered milk: extremely promising
Saffron: promising, not yet perfected
Chestnut flour: amazing
Chestnut flour: amazing
Carrot chips and/or wasabi peas: ok, I ate them up before I made the meringues-will try again
Many of these things ended up as recipes in books, others are yet to come. I have a long list of other things to try…including pulverized dried mushrooms.
We are obsessed with merigues in our house. Whats not to love. Its the perfect way to use egg whites when you have a recipe that only calls from the yolks… Meringues = Resourcefulness!!!
Yes! And frugal, until you get so obsessed that you start having a pile up of leftover yolks!