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General Meringue Questions


Sararwelch

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  • 5 weeks later...

Italian Meringue question.

I want to make a celery simple syrup to be used to make a celery Italian meringue. I've juiced a bunch of fresh celery, and will boil it down to remove impurities. In the end, what ratio of liquid to sugar should I be going for...is it okay for me to treat it as if it were water. One recipe I found says 1 C. superfine sugar to 1/3 C. water. Sound right?

Geez, now I wonder if I can candy a celery stalk for garnish!

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Glory, Rob. You the same Geephron who was aghast at a little cornstarch in cheesecake? Celery buttercream? I can't wait to hear the rest of the components.

If it gets thick the sugar would probably relax it. I make Swiss all the time so I'm not as familiar with Italian. But the recipe I just looked up said 1/4 cup water to a cup of sugar. So a third to a cup sounds good. But sorry, dude, everybody I know that does celery buttercream has already turned in for the night. :rolleyes:

Don't forget celery seed. Maybe if you smush those & infuse your celery juice that could help get you the right depth of flavor without having to reduce the juice so much. Maybe.

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Italian Meringue question.

I want to make a celery simple syrup to be used to make a celery Italian meringue.  I've juiced a bunch of fresh celery, and will boil it down to remove impurities.  In the end, what ratio of liquid to sugar should I be going for...is it okay for me to treat it as if it were water.  One recipe I found says 1 C. superfine sugar to 1/3 C. water.  Sound right? 

Geez, now I wonder if I can candy a celery stalk for garnish!

remember that the water in the sugar for italian meringue is only there to moisten the sugar enough so that it doesn't crystallize. by the time you cook it to soft ball, most of the moisture will have cooked out (not entirely as with caramel, but getting there). the flavor will likely concentrate too, so you'll have to contend with that. so, it doesn't really matter how much liquid you add to the sugar, in order for it to reach soft ball, it will have to cook until it reaches 240F or whatever the temp is.

i realize that doesn't really answer your question, but it may make you reconsider how it works in order to get the flavor that you're looking for.

eta: also don't know how it all works in high attitude...oops, i mean high altitude :wink:

Edited by alanamoana (log)
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How much can you concentrate the celery juice? I'd rather see you add it to the finished buttercream to get more oomph out of it. I have no idea how much (if any) natural sugar would be in celery, but if you use the microwave to reduce the juice, you won't caramelize any of the naturally occurring sugars in the celery. But if you come up with a sort of celery concentrate, the flavor will go much further than if you used celery juice to moisten the sugar. Plus, if you don't get all the impurities out, you'll crystallize the sugar as you make the syrup.....

this sounds pretty cool.....

second thought: can you make a celery "curd"? Use all yolks a la RLB's lemon curd recipe to get the most celery flavor (fat carries flavor and using all yolks will help capture as much of the elusive celery flavor as possible).

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Ooops -there's some confusion. I'm making meringue not buttercream - I'll save the celery buttercream for a carrot cake (now that's an idea!). Alana - that all makes sense - thanks. And actually Jeanne and Kate, your comments are actually very helpful because the "sweetness" of celery at normal concentration is lost in the boiling down process. I didn't experience much if any crystalization from natural sugars.

My first version of this flavor combination was good but not intense enough for me. Before the celery was included in with lemon. This time I want to separate it out and let it stand on its own. That's why this question. I want an amazingly lucsiously smooth and creamy celery meringue swirl on the top of my lemon chiffon.

The other question which I don't know how to describe is about meringue piping. I've seen pics (somewhere) of meringue piped on desserts that look like a huge star tip (like 3-4" diameter). I've assumed its not a star tip but some fancy technique. Anyone know what I'm talking about and how to do it?

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  • 2 months later...

Looking back I seem to be asking all of the meringue questions. Here's a basic one that I haven't found the answer to yet - how long will an Italian meringue last? I want to make it and not use it for a few hours - will that be okay? Should I refrigerate or not? I'm going to be serving it unbaked as part of a dessert.

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Last year, I used an Italian Meringue for the outside of a Lady Baltimore cake that was a special request from a client. The filling was fine, and held up for a few hours, but the outside broke down. I didn't see the finished product, but when I checked what I had left in the mixer bowl, it had definitely deflated and did not look the same as it did when first made. The client later said that the outside had started to weep by the time evening rolled around, and this was probably about 4 hours after delivery. I made it (the outside meringue) just before applying it on the cake.

I've heard that the neutral mousse mixes are a substitute but I have no idea. I think the kind that you mix with water and then add whipped cream to is the kind this could work with.

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rob, in direct answer, we used to make an italian meringue at a restaurant where i worked. it was piped onto a tart a la minute and torched. the meringue was made during the day (when the production people worked and got off work at 2 or 3pm) and we used it for the dinner service (which started at 5pm and ran until 11pm) and it held up fine if it was made well. we usually kept it in the piping bag in the fridge and had extra on hand in a container in the fridge.

also, francois payard makes baked alaskas ahead (for special occasion cakes) and keeps them frozen with the italian meringue on the outside...seems to work for him also.

edited to add: might make a difference depending on the ratio of sugar to egg white that you're using.

Edited by alanamoana (log)
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So, I just made my first meringue and it was a disaster. Dark beige on the outside, nice and puffed up when it came out of the oven, then it fell, leaving a thin crumbly exterior and a spongy white interior.

I used a Jamie Oliver recipe for basic French meringue and thought I'd followed it to the letter.

What could I have done so wrong?

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So, I just made my first meringue and it was a disaster. Dark beige on the outside, nice and puffed up when it came out of the oven, then it fell, leaving a thin crumbly exterior and a spongy white interior.

I used a Jamie Oliver recipe for basic French meringue and thought I'd followed it to the letter.

What could I have done so wrong?

sounds like you baked it at too high a temperature and (while it sounds contradictory) too short a time.

with meringue, if you're looking for a crispy result, low temperature for a long time will get it to dry out sufficiently without getting too much color in the process.

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I made a dessert for today off one of my great grandmother's recipe cards -- a meringue into a greased 9 x 13 pan, baked, cooled and filled with a lemon curd/whipped cream mixture.

Everything worked just fine until I tried to get pieces of this out of the pan. It stuck like crazy. What should I have done? Baked the meringue on parchment in the pan, removed and peeled the parchment off first?

Susan Fahning aka "snowangel"
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  • 2 years later...

i've been using an italian meringue to top my tres leches cakes...i'm doing some for an event over 2-3 days. is there any way to stop the meringue from evaporating by the third day? thats when i notice that its starting to get foamy and wispy.

i'd try a gelatin stabilized whipped cream but i'm just not a fan of it over a nice meringue on the tres leches.

egg white powder? meringue powder? :blink:

i'm stumped with this one

thanks!

-D

Danny

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