Chocolate Pecan Meringues: A Special Kiss
Before Hawaii: a story and recipe from The Baking Wizard! Greg Patent was twelve years old the first time He made, or tried to make, meringue kisses.
A Young Greg Patent Baking Story
Meringues have always fascinated me. What a stunning notion that you can beat air and sugar into a viscous mass of gloppy egg whites and transform it into a billowy white stiffness that bakes into something crunchy yet chewy. I was twelve years old the first time I made, or tried to make, meringue kisses.
What is Cream of Tartar?
The recipe was from Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book, and in the list of ingredients I came across something I’d never heard of: Cream of tartar. What was it? My parents didn’t know, and our landlady who lived upstairs and baked, wasn’t home. So I asked a family friend who was visiting what he thought it might be. He said he knew of tartar sauce and that it was made with mayonnaise and that maybe I could try that. Not knowing what else to do, I plopped in ¼ teaspoon from our Best Foods jar and beat away. And beat, and beat, and nothing happened. The whites just refused to whip. I learned later how fat prevents the egg white proteins from joining together and forming air cells. But at the time I just cried, and threw out the mess. When our landlady came home she told me cream of tartar was an acid powder that stabilized egg whites and that I could buy it at the grocery store. I ran off to buy it, and my next try at meringue kisses drew raves. Over the years I’ve modified the basic recipe into something more dramatic. Here it is.