French Meringue Meringue Mushroom Recipes

MERINGUE MUSHROOMS RECIPE

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 210 F/100 C. To make the meringue, place egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer or in a metal bowl to use an electric mixer. Add powdered (icing) sugar and combine. Put the bowl over the bain-marie and beat egg whites with a hand whisk until foamy. When the mixture is hot, remove the bowl from the heat and beat, using a stand or an electric mixer, until the meringue is cooled completely. Once it is ready, use the meringue immediately.
• Place the meringue in a pastry bag fitted with a round tip 1/2" (12 mm). Pipe 4 meringue dots in the corners of a baking sheet and place parchment paper. It will fix the paper during pipping and baking.
• To pipe the meringue stems, hold the pastry bag perpendicular to the baking sheet. Start piping gently, forming a stem's base, then lift the bag while squeezing. Make sure to make the pointed end by pulling up the bag.
• For the mushroom caps, keep holding the piping bag perpendicular to the baking sheet and smoothly squeeze the bag. Push the meringue into a plain round shape. Once the perfect shape is obtained, stop squeezing and slowly remove the bag off to the side to avoid creating a peak on top. If needed, use a lightly moistened finger to flatten the spike of the meringue dome.
• The size of mushroom caps and the height of stems may vary: while the caps may average to 1 to 2 inch (2.5 cm to 5 cm) rounds and about 1 inch/2.5 cm high, the stems may get about 1 inch/2.5 cm high. Caps and stems should be placed 1 inch/2.5 cm apart. Sprinkle mushroom caps with cocoa powder.
• Bake caps and stems for 1 hour. Once the meringue is ready, let it cool and detach from parchment paper. Make a hole on the bottom of each cap with the tip of a knife. Fill the hole and the top of stems with a little dark chocolate melted in a microwave. Insert the stems into the hole under the caps. Place the mushrooms upside down and refrigerate to allow the chocolate to set.

MERINGUE MUSHROOMS

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 225 degrees F (110 degrees C). Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper or aluminum foil.
• In a large glass or metal bowl, use an electric mixer to whip egg whites until foamy. Add cream of tartar, salt, and vanilla. Continue whipping until the whites hold soft peaks. Gradually sprinkle in the sugar so that it does not sink to the bottom, and continue whipping until the mixture holds stiff shiny peaks.
• Place a round tip into a pastry bag, and fill the bag half way with the meringue. To pipe the mushroom caps, squeeze out round mounds of meringue onto one of the prepared cookie sheets. Pull the bag off to the side to avoid making peaks on the top. For the stems, press out a tiny bit of meringue onto the other sheet, then pull the bag straight up. They should resemble candy kisses. Do not worry about making all of the pieces exactly the same. The mushrooms will look more natural if the pieces are different sizes. Dust the mushroom caps lightly with cocoa using a small sifter or strainer.
• Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, or until the caps are dry enough to easily remove from the cookie sheets. Set aside to cool completely. Melt the coating chocolate in a metal bowl over simmering water, or in a glass bowl in the microwave, stirring occasionally until smooth.
• Poke a small hole in the bottom of a mushroom cap. Spread chocolate over the bottom of the cap. Dip the tip of a stem in chocolate, and press lightly into the hole. When the chocolate sets, they will hold together. Repeat with remaining pieces. Store at room temperature in a dry place or tin.

MERINGUE MUSHROOMS RECIPE

Steps:

• Add 2 egg whites, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/8 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp cream of tartar and beat with whisk attachment on high speed 7 min or until you have glossy ribbons and the peaks stay fairly stiff.
• Transfer meringue to your pastry bag fitted with a 3/8" round tip and pipe onto lined cookie sheet (about 1″ apart). Mushroom caps should look like large chocolate kisses (1 1/2" diameter at the base) with the tip swirled into the side so you get an even top. If you're a perfectionist; you can smooth the mushroom caps with a wet fingertip. Mushroom stems should look like slimmer/taller kisses (3/4" diameter at the base) and tips pointed up.
• Bake at 200˚F for 1 hour 30 min. They should slide easily off the parchment paper easily when they are done. Remove from oven and pull parchment paper off the baking sheet. Let cool on paper completely to room temp. Note: When they come out of the oven, they will be crisp on the outside and a little marshmallowy on the inside, but will harden as they cool.
• To assemble, dust the tops and stems lightly with cocoa powder. If you like, you can smudge the cocoa powder with your fingers to give them that natural dirty glow :). Rotate the tip of a small paring knife in the center of each mushroom cap to cut a small hole just large enough to fit the tip of the base.
• Now melt chocolate, transfer into a ziploc bag, snip off a tiny hole from the corner of the bag and pipe chocolate into the holes of meringue. Stick the bases into the holes and leave them upside-down until chocolate hardens and sets. Gently transfer set cookies to an airtight container and store for several days at room temp. Do not refrigerate.

FRENCH MERINGUE & MERINGUE MUSHROOM

Steps:

• In a large bowl with an electric mixer at low speed, beat the egg whites until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and increase the speed until soft peaks form. Start adding the sugar slowly. Beat until glossy stiff peaks form.
• Place the meringue in a piping bag or large zip-lock bag and push the mixture toward one corner, folding the other corner over, then twisting, allowing you to control the meringue. Cut off just the very tip of the exposed corner so the meringue can exit the bag. Then try it out by dotting four small beads of meringue at the corners of a cookie sheet. Set a sheet of parchment paper over the top; the meringue beads will provide a bond to hold the paper in place.
• Make the mushroom caps by holding the bag over the parchment paper and push until a 1-inch mound of meringue forms. Wet the tip of your finger with water and gently round off any peaks to make a smooth surface.
• For mushroom stems, form peaks on smaller mounds of meringue by pulling the bag up and away from the surface as you push.
• Bake them in a 200° oven for an hour, and then turn oven temperature down to 175 and leave them until they're completely dry to the touch.
• Optional:.
• Melt the chocolate chips in a glass microwave-safe dish in the microwave for about one minute or until melted. Once cool, you can coat the bottom of the mushroom caps with dark chocolate, let them set, and then coat them again with white chocolate. Once the white chocolate is set, you can scratch in the mushroom gills using a toothpick, and attach the stem using a little more white chocolate.
• Or, if not coating the bottom of the mushroom caps, make a hole smaller than a pea in the bottom of a mushroom cap with a toothpick or skewer. Dip the tip of the stem in the melted chocolate and press into the hole in the cap. Allow the chocolate "glue" to harden (it only takes a minute). Place the mushroom upright on its stem and dust the cap lightly with cocoa powder.

FRENCH MERINGUE

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• In a mixer, begin to whip the egg whites with cream of tartar, if using.. Slowly add the sugar. Whip the whites until stiff peaks.
• Combine flour and confectioners' sugar (and nut powder if using), then fold into whites.
• Load batter into pastry bag (use open star or any desired shape IF NOT using nut powder otherwise use no tip), and pipe quarter size meringues onto grease free parchment paper. Bake for 5 to 7 minutes until browned. Remove and cool before use.
• Pipe buttercream from cake assembly into some of the meringues for a surprise.
• Apply meringues to the cake after applying a heavy crumb coat. Cover completely. Put fresh berries or dollops of cooled, piped chocolate ganache between any gaps of the meringues.

FRENCH MERINGUE BUTTERCREAM

Steps:

• Start whipping egg whites slowly in the mixer until foamy. Increase the speed of the mixer and slowly start adding the sugar until all the sugar is incorporated. Once all the sugar is in, increase the speed of the mixer even more and whip until the mixture is shiny and stiff. You now have a meringue. You know when your meringue is done when you pull out the whip, hold it horizontally, and if you have what looks a "sparrow's beak" on the end of the whip.
• Replace the whip, turn the mixer on medium and start adding the butter a bit at a time. Once all the butter is incorporated, turn the mixer on high and let mix; depending on the weather, the buttercream could take anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes to form. You will know when it has formed when you hear the motor of the mixer start to slow down and whine a little bit; also, when you first add the butter, your meringue will break down and look weird and this is what you want. When the buttercream is done, the mixture will be homogeneous, consistent, and tasty.
• Remove the buttercream from the bowl and transfer to an airtight container. Buttercream can be kept at room temperature for a few days or in the refrigerator for a 1 to 2 weeks, but always use warm buttercream when icing a cake. To warm up the buttercream, put it back in the mixer using the whip or the paddle, and apply direct heat with a propane torch you can find at any hardware store.

AUTHENTIC FRENCH MERINGUES

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F (95 degrees C). Butter and flour a baking sheet.
• In a glass or metal bowl, whip egg whites until foamy using an electric mixer. Sprinkle in sugar a little at a time, while continuing to whip at medium speed. When the mixture becomes stiff and shiny like satin, stop mixing, and transfer the mixture to a large pastry bag. Pipe the meringue out onto the prepared baking sheet using a large round tip or star tip.
• Place the meringues in the oven and place a wooden spoon handle in the door to keep it from closing all the way. Bake for 3 hours, or until the meringues are dry, and can easily be removed from the pan. Allow cookies to cool completely before storing in an airtight container at room temperature.

BASIC FRENCH MERINGUE

Steps:

• Whisk whites, salt, and cream of tartar with a mixer on medium-low speed until foamy. Add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, whisking until sugar dissolves and soft peaks form. Gradually increase speed to medium-high, and whisk until stiff peaks form, 8 to 10 minutes. Use immediately.

MERINGUE MUSHROOMS

Steps:

• Heat oven to 200 degrees. Place Swiss Meringue in an 18-inch pastry bag fitted with a large round tip (Wilton #1A). Line two baking sheets with parchment. Pipe meringue, forming domes 1 to 2 inches in diameter. Pipe a stem shape for each dome. Place baking sheets in oven for 1 hour, reduce heat to 175 degrees, and continue baking until meringues are completely dry to the touch but not browned, 45 to 60 minutes.
• Fill a medium saucepan one quarter full with water. Set over medium heat, and bring water to a simmer. Place bittersweet chocolate in a heat-proof bowl, and set over simmering water. Turn off heat; stir occasionally until completely melted. Using an offset spatula, spread bottoms of domed meringues with chocolate; let set at room temperature.
• Place white chocolate in a heat-proof bowl, and set over simmering water. Turn off heat; stir occasionally until completely melted. Allow to cool slightly. Spread white chocolate over dark chocolate; use a toothpick to create lines from the center of the cap to the edges. Let set in a cool, dry place.
• Poke a small hole in the center of each mushroom cap using a paring knife. Dip the pointed end of each of the mushroom stems in melted white chocolate, and insert into hole in center of cap. Allow to set. Meringue mushrooms should be kept in an airtight container in a cool, dry place.