Meringue step by step (meringue sighs recipe)

Luisa, from the blog Cocinando con mi Carmela , brings you today a classic recipe: a delicious French meringue that Luisa presents today in the form of little sighs. It is one of those recipes with which it is customary to open a KitchenAid, I assure you that it is perfect!

After a well-deserved vacation and total disconnection, this week everything has returned to normal; I have continued with my gastronomic photos, studio photos, baby photos, etc… and I have put my hands in the dough again.

For a couple of months, I have in my possession a beautiful KitchenAid , and I had to make a recipe where this was the protagonist. What better way than to premiere it with some fantastic meringues? The truth is that the KitchenAid has no equal when it comes to mounting egg whites, so I don't get caught up anymore, and let's go with them!

Below I will tell you four basic things when preparing meringues, and I will leave you the recipe to prepare what is called meringues or sighs .

How to make a good meringue

What does the meringue consist of? It is a foam that we obtain from beating egg whites sweetened with sugar. First we make the foam with the whites and beat with a whisk or with our KitchenAid . When the foam is forming, we add the sugar in the form of rain, little by little. This one in particular is called French meringue, but we find other types of meringues such as Italian or Japanese (the latter is added in the preparation of ground almonds).

Meringue is a basic of confectionery , it is usually prepared and used in cakes, cakes or for delicious macarons, but they are also super beautiful for any type of decoration.

Today's recipe is called meringues or sighs , and with the help of a pastry bag they will be super cute, since you can give them the shape you want depending on the nozzle you use.

Tips to prepare a good meringue

• Use very fresh egg whites at room temperature.
• The mixing bowl must be super clean and dry, and the whites without any hint of yolk, otherwise they will not mount.
• You can add cream of tartar or lemon juice (in my case they are made without any of these components), they help stabilize the meringue.
• Beat at medium speed.
• The French meringue, once prepared, must be baked immediately or it will lose volume.
• When cooking, the oven must be at a low temperature, and its cooking duration will be a minimum of 1 hour.

Meringue sighs and KitchenAid Artisan food processor

Ingredients

• 80g of egg whites
• 80g of white sugar
• 80g of icing sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence (optional)

Preparation

1. With the very dry and clean bowl of our kitchen robot , we introduce the whites and mount them to the point of snow at a medium speed, for about 6-7 minutes. You can also do it without the robot, of course, beating constantly with some rods or an electric whisk .
2. Once the meringue is ready, without stopping, we add the normal sugar in the form of rain (if you want to add vanilla essence, add it at the same time that we add the sugar) and, little by little, we continue beating for about 5 more minutes. After these minutes in the same bowl we add the icing sugar and this time with the help of a spatula we stir until everything is well mixed.
3. At this time we preheat the oven to 180ºC.
4. To form the mini meringues we use a pastry bag , and on a baking sheet with parchment paper we will form the sighs of meringues, with a little separation between them.
5. With this amount I have had two plates, which I have put in the oven at the same time and baked for about 70 minutes, lowering the oven temperature to 90ºC more or less (it will depend on each oven).
6. Once this time has passed, we turn off the oven and leave the meringues in the oven for a while longer.
7. When we take them out, place them on a wire rack and let them cool.