faux meringues {one egg white}
This is a recipe Rosie Beaucoup introduced me to many years ago. I believe the original came from an ancient Canadian Living magazine, but I’ve altered the notes and method considerably. Growing up, I ate many a meringue made with this method, and even requested them as a part of my prom night dinner (which Rosie catered). I wore a shiny gold dress and had a fresh perm, so yes, I LOOKED SPECTACULAR.
I call these faux meringues, as unlike their true meringue cousins, this recipe only requires one egg white. In addition, when making traditional meringues, you would normally whip multiple egg whites for a bit and then slowly add the sugar. Not with these babies! You’re basically going to throw everything into a bowl and hope for the best. (Not unlike the chaperones at a prom.)
Some of you might not think these meringues are as pretty as their authentic cousin as they sometimes grow feet – at least on the small kisses. (I gathered some footed friends for the photo below). And like all meringues, they’ll sometimes crack. Still, I’m devoted to them. I’m more than happy to live with meringue pedestals and blemishes when the results are so darn tasty.
This is a small batch recipe, which makes these meringue kisses perfect for using as embellishments on a dessert. Because there is only egg white – you will not get the same quality of meringue that you would from a traditional recipe. You’ll find the meringue doesn’t get as silky as you might expect during whipping. This is due in part to the absence of all those egg whites, and as a result it’s next to impossible to get the meringue perfectly smooth and grit-free. If you run the sugar through a food processor or blender (after measuring), it helps in this department, but I’m extremely lazy, rarely do so, and still enjoy them immensely.
Now, some of my description above might sound negative, but don’t for a moment get me wrong. I love these meringues! Crunchy, sweet, and melt-in-your mouthy. They are more cost effective than a traditional recipe, and don’t leave you with copious quantities of egg yolks to use up. They take no time to throw together, and they’re perfect for snacking upon. Yes, pastry snobs will turn their noses up at you and your faux meringues, but WHO NEEDS ‘EM?! (You’ve got me.) (And meringues.)
Serving suggestions:
- on top of ice cream or berries – whole kisses or crushed – with whipped cream (think Eton Mess)
- in a bowl with whipped cream and chocolate sauce – this is my most favourite dessert on the planet
- as is, and by the handful
If you plan to crush these meringues over a dessert, you might not want to pipe them. Simply use a couple of spoons to drop small mounds onto the parchment paper and bake that way. They’ll probably be larger than the kisses, so you’ll need to adjust your baking time accordingly. Like, bake them longer. You understood that, right?
So, if you need a perfect, blemish-free meringue, I’d recommend using a traditional recipe. But if you’ve got one stupid egg white leftover from a recipe? Give it purpose! If you’re looking for something to plop on top of an otherwise healthy dessert? These kisses will suit. Need a bite-sized pick-me-up? This one’s for you! Long for a cheap, easy-to-throw-together meringue? Go forth, Meringue Rebel! Wishing I’d stop this ridiculous series of questions and answers? Done.
. . .
Faux Meringues
Yields about 40 meringue kisses, 1 to 1.5 inches in diameter.
- 1 large egg white, room temperature
- 3/4 cup super-fine sugar
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon white vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons boiling water
Mise en place – get organized. Read through the entire recipe before beginning. Measure out all of your ingredients. Running the sugar (after measuring) through a food processor or blender will help to eliminate some of the potential grit in these meringues. Meringues whip best in metal or glass bowls, which are clean and grease-free.
Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 225°F.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, on low speed, mix the egg white, sugar, cornstarch, vinegar and vanilla extract for about 10 seconds. With the mixer still running (be sure it’s at low speed to avoid splash-back), add the 2 tablespoons boiling water and mix for about 20-30 seconds. Increase speed to medium, and beat for about 1 minute. Increase speed to medium-high and beat until stiff, shiny peaks form and the mixture feels less gritty, about 15 minutes. If using a hand-held mixer, this might take a little longer.
Pipe or spoon the meringue into small mounds on prepared baking sheet. I use a piping bag fitted with a Wilton 6B tip – a large French tip. Each piped kiss has about a tablespoon of meringue, and is about 1 inch in diameter.
Bake for about 1 hour if making small meringue kisses, and longer if meringues are larger. Check your meringues for doneness after about 45 minutes of baking time – it’s best if you don’t open the oven door before this. Test for doneness by breaking one open – meringues should be firm and crisp. Turn off oven and leave meringues inside until crisp, dry and completely cool – about 1 hour.
Remove from oven and carefully remove from parchment paper.
I love these! They are sweet and adorable and the PERFECT use of one egg white. Or even many.
They look pretty perfect to me! Faux or not, I’ll eat them!
I plan to burn all the old photos of me with permed hair—before my kids find them and put them on Facebook :/ LOVE this mini batch recipe. These little gems would be a wonderful garnish on a layer cake!
We have a family rule: no posting ugly photos of one another online. It is strictly enforced. Those who break the rule? Well, we don’t know what happens to them. Because they are dead to us.
I just can’t get over how perfectly piped these little ones are. You are a baking machine, Movita.
[…] These meringues […]
I love meringues, and they are one of my guilty pleasures when I visit France. These are adorable, as well as do-able using the one egg method. Cannot wait to try them out. Lovely.
When I was in France, I ate 4.7 million meringues. And my family kept yelling at me because I wasn’t devoting more stomach space to pastry. BUT I DIDN’T CARE!
I honestly always put off making meringues just because I don’t want to commit all those whites, but now I finally have a recipe I can make without my fear of commitment kicking in!
Also, I’m anxiously awaiting a prom photo of you…
I keep hoping one of my students will wanna wear my dress to this year’s prom. Aren’t the 80’s back?
How can anyone know that they need to borrow your dress if we can’t see a pic of you wearing it?
This is awesome.
Also, I kind of think the footed friends are my favorite.
Mine too! They’re like the macarons’ cousin from the other side of the tracks!
Okay, so I have a dumb question: I rarely make a batch of meringues with more than 3-4 egg whites. I’ve always considered this to be just a small-ish batch — not fake in any way, just a halved recipe. Besides being smaller than the average recipe (and adding the sugar all at once — that is rebellious!) what makes these “fake”?
In other news, I’m kind of in love with how adorable these are. Bite sized meringues are the best kind of meringues!
Dear Willow, it is the incredibly low quantity of egg white that makes this a faux meringue. For there are no egg whites to speak of for whipping and filling with air! Most recipes would require at least three egg whites – that’s the lowest I’ve seen anyway. Whipping those egg whites is much like blowing up a balloon – it causes the protein in the egg whites to kind of come undone, and eventually traps the air bubbles. And then the addition of sugar after that stiffens the foam, making it more stable. A meringue is normally all about that foam. But in these babies? No foam to speak of! It’s like a sugary miracle!
I, too, love these adorable things. Which is good, as I’ve got about 50 to munch on…
Ah, okay. I guess I hadn’t considered just how little one egg white actually is. I’ve successfully made meringues with two, but maybe our eggs are just freakishly large or something. Thanks for explaining!
It does not surprise me that your preference is “a large French tip”. But seriously, this sounds like an outstanding quick and dirty as opposed to the whole traditional overnight meringue thing.
This is a great recipe and using just one egg white means you don’t have all those yolks to deal with – great way to use up odd egg white too.
I totally want to try this!
(Also I’m just curious — since you mentioned that they might still have a little grit, but that you could try just further grinding the sugar… do you think this would possibly work with storebought powdered sugar? …and then maybe the cornstarch could be reduced too, I guess, since powdered sugar usually has some already.)
I haven’t used confectioner’s sugar – mostly because I think it would alter the flavour and I’d definitely have to rework the measurements. I’m very lazy, Allison. Never forget that. That said, I gave a pile of these faux meringues to my students yesterday, and they LOVED them.
You know, I’ll bet 2.0 asked you to marry him after he saw these the first time. They are so cute!
they are just so. damn. perfect.
i’m sitting in my office right now and daydreaming about making these tonight, as a last minute thrown together treat for dw, though we don’t celebrate vday, we did meet on feb 9th 4 years ago so there is that.
Fantastic recipe and easy to make! I needed some meringue cookies for a cake embellishments, but didnt want to make a large batch… This was perfect… I ended up with almost 2 sheet pans of mini kisses…
I also put my sugar in a Ninja blender and there was no grittiness!
Will be using this recipe over and over again!!
This is wonderful to hear! Thanks so much for taking the time to let me know!
Comments on this post are closed as it was published in February 2015.