Cookbook talk:Meringue Cookies I

This recipe was originally adapted from The New Dr. Price Cookbook, written anonymously.

Personally, I'm skeptical about the need for baking powder in meringue. I wonder if it's just there because the recipe was written by a baking powder company, or if it actually helps. If someone would care to try it without the powder, I'd be interested to hear how it turns out.--Polyparadigm 21:27, 30 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh my goodness! I'm sorry to say that the baking powder does not help in the least. I usually make my meringues just with egg whites and caster sugar, usually add some vanilla extract for flavour, and maybe food-dye for some different colours (you can be really creative with shapes too!).  The one down side of the recipe I usually follow is that I can end up with some clear sugary goo (sugar syrup really) on the edges of my meringues where they touch the baking paper. I've heard that corn starch can 'help', or rather that some people use a little of that, as well as other things like baking powder and cream of tartar. I just thought I would give the baking powder a try in my current batch - DISASTER.  You should be able to pipe meringue to create swirls, nests, flowers, dinosours - whatever you like.  With the baking powder your left with un-pipeable slop, no wonder this recipe says "drop by spoonfuls".

THIS IS A REALLY POOR RECIPE. It did puff up a lot in the oven, but was just way below par, even the translations of ingredients from cups to mls is off, a cup is 250ml, making 1¼C = 312.5ml, not 300ml as listed in the recipe. The recipe also lists 'granulated sugar' among the ingredients - I would take this to mean standard white sugar, which would make meringue a bit harder to pull off than what is listed in most recipes, caster sugar. This is what I found in the wikipedia article about sugar:


 * "Granulated sugar comes in various crystal sizes — for home and industrial use — depending on the application:


 * Coarse-grained sugars, such as sanding sugar (nibbed sugar or sugar nibs) find favor for decorating cookies (biscuits) and other desserts. 

Normal granulated sugars for table use: typically they have a grain size about 0.5 mm across Finer grades result from selectively sieving the granulated sugar  caster sugar (0.35 mm), commonly used in baking  superfine sugar, also called baker's sugar, berry sugar, or bar sugar — favored for sweetening drinks or for preparing meringue"

Also the part of the recipe that states: :::"Remove any soft part from center of meringues and return to oven to dry out after turning off heat. " also suggests that the recipe is faulty, as you should not need to remove any part of the meringue (and thus ruin its presentation) if made correctly.

I vote that this recipe be scrapped in favour of a basic caster sugar and egg whites recipe. Tink 08:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC)