Oh! Great question and answer shows here.
Don’t tell me because of beating. Obviously, if you beat the egg white you will get the proper meringue. Let us see, how it works?
The meringue is the heroine of the first part of this new monthly chronicle which consists in dissecting a commodity, an object, a phenomenon in its chemical aspect. Enjoy your meal! The meringue … ah the meringue! Accompanied by double cream of Gruyère, a real delight! If everyone agrees that the double cream Gruyère is a Gruyerian specialty, opinions differ as to the origin of the meringue.
What was not my disappointment to learn that the meringue was not born from the hands of “Master” Angelo Rime Botterens! In fact, its origin is most obscure. A little literature search goes back to the Polish “Marzynka” … For a more romanticized origin, it is said that Napoleon named this dessert for having eaten, and appreciated, the first time in a small village in the Oberland Bern on behalf of Meiringen.
MERINGUES…
1, Swiss Meringue : Egg whites and icing sugar, whipped and then baked.
2, French Meringue : Beaten egg whites then added with sugar and then baked.
3, Italian Meringue : Beaten egg whites onto which the melted sugar is poured.
Decisive cooking The cooking method is the key step in differentiating the meringue from Meiringen from that of Botterens. Until the sixties, the meringues were cooked overnight in the oven at a temperature of 100 ° C. They were all white, they were Meiringen’s meringues.
In addition to its historical interest, the meringue also shows very interesting physicochemical properties.
WHAT IS HAPPENING?
Two ingredients come into the composition of this delicious dessert, the egg white and sugar. Technically, a foam is a dispersion of gas in a liquid. More simply, it is a relatively stable mass of bubbles. When the egg white is beaten, air bubbles are trapped in the liquid and a foam is formed. During threshing, air bubbles decrease in size and increase in number.
The initially translucent egg white takes on an opaque appearance. When a larger amount of air is incorporated, the foam becomes firm and loses its liquid properties. If you whip the water, you also have small bubbles, but they can not survive. In the case of the meringue, the proteins contained in large numbers in the egg white allow this rise from white to snow. By the mechanical action of the whip, these proteins unfold and form a film on the surface of the bubble, in other words at the air-liquid interface.
This film is essential for the stability of the foam thus preventing bubbles from fusing. Attention to fat Synthetic products such as Sodium Luaryl Sulfate (0.1% of the mass of egg whites, to be added to whites still transparent) or Triethyl Citrate facilitate this process of denaturation, this deployment of proteins. In our opinion, the foam is then of better quality and takes more quickly. No difference in taste in the meringue.
Be careful not to beat the egg whites too much. In such a case, the proteins bind together and are no longer in sufficient numbers at the air-liquid interface. The snow becomes liquid, this time with a large amount of coagulated proteins, glued together, and therefore unable to recreate a new foam.
Pay attention also to the yolk of the egg; a single drop in the white can reduce the maximum foam volume by two-thirds. The reason is the fat it contains. This promotes the coagulation of proteins; we then observe the same phenomenon as in case of prolonged hype. The effect of other fats and oils is less important, but still enough to avoid plastic containers.
Indeed, plastics are polymers of hydrocarbons, substance found in large proportion in greases, and so plastics tend to keep traces of fat on the surface. It has been shown that the use of copper bowls is advantageous when one wants to raise the whites to snow. The resulting foam is creamier and more stable. Scientists are not unanimous in explaining this phenomenon.