Pavlovas always make for striking desserts at any table, but they do need a long time to dry out in the oven and can crack all too easily. If you need a more reliable option in a hurry, then why not try some personal pavlovas? This recipe features a vanilla flavoured meringue, prosecco whipped cream and is topped with a variety of berries, making it ideal as a light summer dessert!
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Fantastic French Meringue
EASY.
AIRY.
VERSATILE
EASY.AIRY.VERSATILE
Meringue comes in many forms, but when it comes to simplicity, French meringue is the champion! Requiring only two ingredients and no complicated techniques, producing a perfect meringue is far easier then you may think!
In this guide, we will run through how to produce French meringue from start to finish, alongside a base recipe that you can customise to suit your desires!
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Before we begin:
The Basic Recipe!
As mentioned above, French meringue requires only two ingredients: egg whites and caster sugar! The ratio you'll need of each is also very straightforward; that being 2:1 caster sugar to egg whites. As such, I recommend that when you prepare your ingredients, weigh out the egg whites as you separate your eggs so you'll know exactly how much sugar you should be adding!
As an example, if using 4 medium eggs, your recipe may look a little like the following:
135g egg whites
270g caster sugar
If you are looking for a vegan version of this recipe, you can swap out the egg whites for an equal amount of aquafaba, which is simply the strained water out of a tin of chickpeas! It will whisk up in just the same way as egg whites do and, while the resulting meringue may be a bit more fragile than the egg-based equivalent, the method you need to follow is exactly the same, making it really easy to cater for your vegan friends and family!
In terms of sugar, I would personally stick to using the regular, white caster sugar. Golden caster sugar can give your baked meringue a bit of golden hue, which sounds romantic but can appear as if overbaked, so I'd say you'd be better off colouring the meringue with some gel food colourings to achieve a more accurate colour. You will want to avoid using brown sugar for this recipe, as the molasses in the sugar will be released in the oven, introducing further liquid into the meringues we are trying to dry out.
Finally, as an optional extra, I like to add a little vanilla extract to my meringue to give it a bit more flavour, typically 1 tsp for every 4 medium egg whites used. You are welcome to use any extracts or essences you fancy; if using them as decoration for a cake or other bake, perhaps you could flavour the meringue in a complementary way!
Equipment you'll need
The most important piece of equipment you'll need is a stand mixer, or at least an electric whisk. We will be whisking the egg whites at a variety of speeds and later the meringue itself at high speed for a good 5 to 10 minutes, so you'll need some kind of gadget that can assist you in this and is comfortable for you to use for this amount of time.
Either way, DO NOT try to make meringue without some kind of electronic assistance. Trying to whisk meringue by hand will be an absolutely miserable, arm numbing experience and really won't be worth the effort. Your meringue will also likely end up grainy, as you are very unlikely to be able to whisk it thoroughly enough to dissolve all of the sugar. So, show yourself the respect you deserve and invest in a little kitchen gadgetry before giving this recipe a try!
While not essential, depending on what you are using your meringue for, you may also want to have piping bags and tips prepared, so that you can pipe your creation into the shape and style you fancy!
The method:
Step 1: Whip up your egg whites
The first step is to whisk your egg whites until clusters of bubbles begin to form, as in the picture below! You can do this at a medium speed, allowing the proteins in the egg white to slowly unfurl and begin to bind together into a fragile network. This network is what traps the air into the egg white, so once you see small bubbles of air forming, you know that the protein network is strong enough to amp up the speed!
The next step is to increase the speed to medium-high and wait until the bubbles form in dense cluster, as shown below! There should be no visible liquidy egg white left at this point, only a big cloud of airy egg! (how appealing!)
At this stage, you will want to stop whisking the egg whites and move on to the following step of adding the sugar. Overwhisking the egg whites before adding the sugar can cause the proteins we have beautifully unfurled up til now to overstretch, causing the network structure we’ve formed to break apart and the egg whites to start collapsing again, turning them into a watery, eggy soup! Unfortunately, you won’t be able to rescue these, so you’ll have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start again, but this time with valuable experience gained!
Step 2: Sugar! (Oh, honey honey!)
Therefore, with your egg whites beaten just enough, you can slow the mixer down to a medium speed again and start adding the sugar! You need to add the sugar a tablespoon at a time, leaving a 10 second or so gap between each spoonful to allow the sugar to be distributed through and dissolved into the water in the egg white, without breaking up the protein structure and knocking out all of the air it contains! It may take a bit of patience, but slow and steady definitely wins the race here!
Once all of your sugar has been incorporated, you can turn the mixer up to the highest speed and leave it whisking your egg-sugar mixture into oblivion for 5 to 10 minutes! This not only traps further air into your meringue, increasing its volume and boosting its light, airy texture, but also helps the sugar to dissolve, preventing the meringue from weeping liquid sugar once baked.
To identify when you can stop whisking, you should periodically scoop out a small amount of the meringue and rub it between your thumb and forefinger. If you feel grains of sugar as you do so, you need to continue running the mixer on high speed for at least another minute. Otherwise, if you don’t feel any graininess, then you know the meringue is ready to use!
Step 3: Colours and flavours!
With your meringue ready to use, this is your chance to colour and flavour it as you fancy! I recommend using gel food colouring, as liquid food colours tend to be too watery to be incorporated smoothly into the meringue and can lead to beading. In terms of flavourings, any extract or essence should work for you! As mentioned before, my preference is to add 1 tsp vanilla extract for every 4 medium egg whites (approx. 130g) used, but you can easily add the flavour to taste.
Once coloured and flavoured, you will want to use your meringue immediately, as, kept uncovered and unbaked, the water in the air draws out some of the dissolved sugar within and causes it to become grainy again. Furthermore, even when kept unbaked in an airtight container, the unbaked protein network will still be unstable and air will naturally escape over time, which could cause it to collapse when it is later put in the oven. You really want to get it into the oven as soon as you can do to bake that protein network into place with as much of the air trapped within as possible!
Step 4: Back to bake-sics!
Speaking of baking, you'll notice that the oven temperatures provided on your recipe will likely be quite low and the baking times pretty long. This is to allow the water within the meringue to evaporate away, leaving you with the crispy, crunchy texture you know and, hopefully, love! Though if you've made it this far into the article and don't love meringue, then fair play to you!
If you find that your meringue is colouring too much in the oven for your liking though, feel free to reduce down the oven temperature by 10-20C from what the recipe suggests when you next bake a batch, as it will stop the sugar from caramellising / burning.
On the other hand, it's very unlikely you'll ever need to raise the oven temperature from the original recipe. While it is true that too low an oven temperature can cause the meringue to collapse, as it is not being set quickly enough before the air escapes, more often than not this will actually be a symptom of you overwhisking the egg whites before adding the sugar (as explained above), which meant that your meringue was pretty unstable before it entered the oven.
To check if your meringue is baked, I like to try lifting it away from the lined baking tray and see if it comes away easily and cleanly. If it does, then that means that your meringue is baked enough to have a stable shell! Otherwise, if you encounter a bit of resistance as you lift, return the tray to the oven for another 10 minutes or so and retry.
Unless stated otherwise, most of my recipes involving meringue will provide you will a strong, stable shell once baked, but with a lovely, marshmellowy center! If you’d like your meringue a bit drier though, feel free to add on an extra 15-20 minutes onto the recipe’s baking time and give them a try! Please do feel free to experiment with your oven at home and find the baking time that suits you.
Once baked, I prefer to leave my meringues in the switched off oven to cool. Removing them from the oven straight away can give them a shock as they cool rapidly to room temperature, causing them to crack. The reason for this is simple; you may have heard of heat rising? Well, in the same way that warming air expands and rises, cooling air contracts and sinks and it is this sudden contraction of the air within the meringue that causes it’s delicate outer shell to crack. Therefore, by letting them cool slowly within the gently dissipating heat of the oven, this contraction will be much more gradual and will reduce the chances of unsightly seams in your carefully crafted confectionery!
Once completely cooled, you can store French meringue in an airtight container at room temperature for a couple of weeks! Likewise, finished desserts made with meringue, such as roulades, can often be stored in the freezer for up to a month!
Et voila! You should have some lovely French meringue, ready to use however you fancy! For some inspiration, check out some of the pictures below!
Here I’ve created meringue kisses flavoured with orange extract to decorate a chocolate orange tart!
Alternatively, you can get creative with your colours and piping techniques to create some ghost and mushroom cupcake toppers!
By painting stripes of food colouring onto the inside of your piping bag, you can create meringue kisses with a rainbow / toothpaste pattern!
Thanks for reading through my French meringue fantasy! I hope this guide has helped you out on your journey to marvelous meringue!
If you’re social media savvy, feel free tag me on Instagram at @toofarfletched with your creations!
-Tom 
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Tom
Hi! Thanks for stopping by!
I set up this site to share with you everything I love about baking, so hopefully there’ll be something here you enjoy too!
If you’d like to get in touch, feel free to use the links below!
I set up this site to share with you everything I love about baking, so hopefully there’ll be something here you enjoy too!
If you’d like to get in touch, feel free to use the links below!
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