Archive for: what-is
Italian meringue is made by beating egg whites until they reach soft, fluffy peaks, then slowly streaming in boiling sugar and beating the mixture until it is thick and glossy. A basic meringue, also known as a French meringue, is made by beating granulated sugar into egg whites until the mixture reaches soft peaks. The hot sugar syrup used to make Italian meringue essentially cooks the egg whites as it is incorporated. This means that you don’t need to cook or bake the meringue before using it. It also means that the meringue is going to be a lot more stable and less likely to deflate or weep than a simple meringue is.
When making an Italian meringue, it is important to add the boiling sugar syrup very slowly, so that you don’t accidentally cook your eggs by overheating them. It is also important to keep the mixer (or your arm, if you are buff/brave) working on a medium-low speed while you work, so that the syrup is incorporated consistently without flying off the whisk attachment or beaters of your mixer. Once the syrup has been incorporated, the meringue is beaten at high speed for several minutes until it has cooled down. Unlike a simple meringue, you cannot overbeat an Italian meringue, so there is no need to worry about that. Once the meringue has cooled down somewhat (some recipes will call for it to be warmer or closer to room temperature for use), it can be used in a variety of recipes.
You’ll frequently see Italian meringues called for as pie toppings, especially for Lemon Meringue Pie, and in desserts like Baked Alaska. Italian meringues are used in some macarons and the meringue can also be piped and baked to make plain meringue cookies. One of the most popular uses for Italian meringue, however, is making rich, buttery Buttercream Frosting, where butter is beaten in to an Italian meringue until the mixture is transformed into one of the most decadent ways to top of a cake or cupcake.
Tempering is a word that means improving the consistency, durability or hardness of a substance by heating and cooling it. Many substances, including metals, are tempered but the most important one might be chocolate. Tempered chocolate is very glossy, has a firm finish and melts smoothly at around body temperature. It is chocolate at its very best, and tempered chocolate is what most good quality chocolate candies, candy bars and bon bons are made out of.
Tempering is done by melting solid chocolate to a temperature high enough that the crystals in the cocoa butter (yes, there are tiny crystals in your chocolate) break down. This temperature is between 110-120F. Once the chocolate is fully melted, it must be cooled to about 82F, a temperature at which crystals will start to form again so that the chocolate can eventually re-solidify. The chocolate’s temperature is then raised back to about 90F, where it is very fluid and can be poured into chocolate molds and used for other applications. All chocolate – white, milk and dark - can be tempered.
The crystals that start to form when the chocolate is cool (Beta 5 crystals, if you want to get specific) are stable crystals contained in the cocoa butter of chocolate. They provide the necessary structure for the chocolate to become shiny, smooth and have a good “snap” when it is set. Chocolate that has not been tempered or that has been improperly tempered will look flat or discolored. It will lack the sharp “snap” of tempered chocolate and will typically not be as smooth as it melts.
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White chocolate is a chocolate confection made with cocoa butter, sugar, milk solids and vanilla, the same ingredients that you’ll find in milk chocolate with the exception of cocoa powder. Cocoa powder is what gives dark and milk chocolates their characteristic chocolate flavor and color. With white chocolate, you’re left with a very creamy and sweet product that has a strong flavor of milk and vanilla to it. The exact flavor of white chocolate will vary from brand to brand, and bar to bar, as the exact amount of each ingredient in white chocolate can vary a lot from manufacturer to manufacturer.
If you read the ingredients list on your white chocolate and see some kind of vegetable oil listed, you’re not dealing with real white chocolate and it won’t have the same luxurious texture as a product made with pure cocoa butter. Good quality quite chocolate will have a cacao percentage marked on the packaging, just as other chocolate bars will. This percentage indicates the amount of cocoa solids – cocoa powder and cocoa butter – in a chocolate product. For white chocolate, it simply indicates the amount of pure cocoa butter in the bar. A higher cocoa butter percentage generally means that the bar will be firmer, smoother and will often be slightly less sweet than other white chocolates.
White chocolate isn’t everyone’s favorite type of chocolate, but it can be absolutely delicious in some types of desserts and baked goods. It adds a nice amount of sweetness to white chocolate macadamia nut cookies (a classic and favorite of mine), for instance, and is an excellent contrast to tangy lemons, limes and even zesty berries in all kinds of desserts.
Marmalade is just as popular a topping for toast as jams, jellies and other fruit preserves are, and its strong orange flavor makes it a popular ingredient in some baked goods, as well. Marmalade is a jelly – a fruit preserve made from sugar and fruit juice, as opposed to fruit puree – that has pieces of fruit suspended it it. It is typically made with the juice, flesh and rind of oranges. Seville oranges, or bitter oranges, are the standard citrus used in marmalade (particularly in English marmalades) because their relatively high pectin content allows the preserve to set firmly and their distinctive bitter note is a pleasant contrast to the otherwise sweet orange juice.
While orange marmalade is the most common variety, marmalade can actually be made with other citrus fruits. This is great news for those who aren’t fans of the bitterness that many traditional marmalades contain. These blends – like the Three Fruit Marmalade pictured above – use sweet oranges, lemons, limes and even grapefruits to create a sweeter preserve that still has that zesty citrus flavor.
Superfine sugar is granulated sugar that has been ground into finer crystals than regular granulated white sugar. Also known as caster sugar, it is popular with bakers because the smaller crystals cream very easily into butter and dissolve more readily into meringues and batters. This leads to products that have a finer crumb and lighter texture when finished, a result that is preferred by many bakers. Superfine sugar is specifically called for in recipes that are very light, such as meringues and angel food cakes.
You can substitute superfine sugar into recipes that call for granulated white sugar and get good results, but you will not necessarily get as good a result if attempting to substitute regular sugar into a recipe that calls for superfine sugar. This is because recipes that specify superfine sugar to be used often count on the fact that the sugar dissolves so easily to get the best finished product possible. If your local grocery store doesn’t carry superfine sugar – or baker’s sugar, as it is sometimes called on packaging – there is no need to worry because you can easily make your own by processing regular granulated sugar in the food processor until it is very fine. A minute or so is usually more than enough time to process the sugar and the newly chopped crystals will work just as well in recipes as store-bought superfine sugar.
Superfine sugar is not the same as powdered or confectioners’ sugar and the two types of sugar are not interchangeable. Confectioners’ sugar has been pulverized to a powder that dissolves almost instantly in liquids and will not incorporate into a recipe the same way that superfine sugar will.
