Meringues are beautiful and delicious and they're so easy to make! In this tutorial
I'll show you how to mix and bake meringues that are crispy on the outside but soft on the inside
and how to make different shapes for them like flamingos and roses,
how to use them to decorate cakes and how to store them so they don't get sticky or soggy.
To make meringues you'll need a whisk, salt, sugar and egg whites. Start by cracking the eggs
and pass the yolk back and forth between the shell, letting the egg whites fall down into a
bowl and dropping the yolk into a separate bowl or a tupperware which you can use for lemon curd or
custard or another dessert. Bring about two inches of water to a boil in a saucepan. Pour the egg
whites, sugar and salt into the bowl of your mixer if it's metal or any other metal bowl and lower
the bowl onto the pan of water and the bottom of the bowl shouldn't touch the surface of the water.
Turn the heat off and whisk the mixture together for two minutes. It will get frothy and after
two minutes, pinch a little bit between your fingers and if it's smooth, it's ready or if not,
whisk it for another 30 seconds. Take the bowl off the heat and now you'll need a whisk or the
whisk attachment for your mixer. Whisk the egg white mixture for nine minutes on high speed
and you'll notice the egg whites go from yellow and frothy to bright white and they'll expand
with all of the air you're incorporating into them so they'll look silky and shiny and fluffy.
You'll see lots of texture left behind by the whisk and when you lift up the whisk the meringue
on it will hold its shape. These are called stiff peaks. The meringue left behind in the bowl will
form a peak as you lift the whisk but it might droop slightly as you pull away and that's fine.
Add whatever flavour you like to the meringue like vanilla or almond or lemon extract
and mix just enough to incorporate that. Now divide the meringue into separate bowls if you
want to tint it different colours or you can add colour to the mixer if you want to tint the entire
batch the same colour. Gels are more concentrated than liquids so I recommend using those to tint
meringue so that you don't water it down and make it runny. Fold the colour in, mixing as little as
possible so you don't knock the air out of the meringue. Drop a piping tip into a piping bag,
push it down to the end, score a line around the midpoint of the tip, push it up out of the
way and then cut along the line you scored. Push the tip back down and it will be snugly inside
the piping bag, ready to use. Meringue is sticky but the least messy way to fill piping bags is
to fold the bag over a glass to hold it open and then spoon the meringue into it so that
when you unfold the bag and pipe with it, you won't get any of that meringue on your hands.
Line a baking tray or a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat
and now let's pipe some meringues! I'm starting with a large open star tip
called an 8B to pipe some rosettes. Hold the tip so that it's slightly above the tray,
squeeze the piping bag to make the meringue bulge out and then stop squeezing at the same time as
lifting the bag and that will leave a neat peak on the rosette. If you want to use the same piping
tip with another colour of meringue you'll need to squeeze the first colour out of the bag to get
the tip out, wash and dry it and then use it in another bag that you fill with the second colour.
If you have couplers they're a much easier and quicker method to use the same colour of meringue
but switch between different piping tips and you won't have nearly as much to clean up at the end.
Drop the coupler into a piping bag and place a piping tip on it on the outside of the bag
and then screw the coupler ring on to hold the piping tip in place. This is a small
open star tip, a #32. Fill the piping bag with meringue and pipe with this colour and this tip.
These are just like the rosettes I piped with the pink and purple meringue except the piping tip
is much smaller so the rosettes are much smaller. To make really bright meringues instead of mixing
gels into the meringue, put the gel straight into the piping bag. You only need a tiny amount
because gels are so concentrated and a paintbrush is the easiest way to get the colour into the bag.
Then fill the piping bag with meringue and pipe whatever shapes you like! These ruffly rosettes
are piped with a 1M star tip and for dollops like these you can use any round tip. This is a 1A, The
colours are much more vivid than if you mix them into the meringue, for example compare the bright
orange on these meringues to the pale orange you can make by mixing the meringue with the gel
and the result is this very light orange. Another way to use a 1M tip is to pipe these swirls,
spiraling outwards. You can place these straight onto a cake or pipe a tiny bit of meringue onto
the tray and press a paper straw into it and then pipe over the top of the straw and after
baking these you can use the straw to push the meringue into the cake as a cake topper.
I'll show you that in a minute. To pipe animals or any other designs draw or trace or print
an outline or design and put it underneath parchment paper or a clear silicon mat and then
trace it with meringue. This is a medium round tip, a #12 and this is going to be a flamingo.
Use a toothpick to smooth out any textured markings. I don't recommend using just a round
tip for shapes because with stiff meringue it's difficult to get a neat smooth surface
but you can create loads of amazing textures using different piping tips. Just squeeze the
leftover meringue into another piping bag with a different tip like this leaf tip,
a #352 which I'm going to use to pipe feathers onto this version of a flamingo. If you're piping
a shape for the first time it's a good idea to make more than one and to try different
techniques so you have different options to choose between because it only adds a few seconds of time
now compared to having to start all over again after baking one that you don't end up liking.
To make black meringue use black gel which I'm going to use for the beaks of these flamingos.
For tiny details like this a sandwich bag works really well.
Push the meringue down to one of the bottom corners of the bag cut a tiny piece off the
corner of the bag and squeeze the bag to pipe the meringue. Again, I'm making two flamingos
so I can choose my favourite after they bake. Use a toothpick to manipulate the meringue to make the
shape you want and to smooth the texture in the piped meringue. To draw lines like for the eye you
can dip a toothpick into meringue and draw with that or the other way to do it after baking the
meringue, skipping ahead for a minute is to use an edible marker to draw the line. I find this way
to be a bit neater than the toothpick method. If you want to use meringue designs as cake toppers,
pipe them onto a straw or poke a straw in carefully after piping but before baking.
You can pipe flowers with meringue just like you would with buttercream. You'll need a petal shaped
piping tip with this teardrop shape and a little square of parchment paper and a flower nail.
Squeeze some meringue onto the head of the nail to act as glue and press the parchment onto
that to attach it. Pipe a blob of meringue onto the middle of the parchment and then hold the
narrow end of the petal tip pointing upwards and squeeze the bag to pipe a spiral of meringue that
wraps around the blob you just piped. Then pipe petals around the rosebud, overlapping each one
and angling the top of the tip inwards to keep the petals tight. Continue wrapping the petals around
the flower, gradually angling the top of the tip further out so that the petals start to fan out.
When you've made the rose as big as you want it, pinch the parchment and slide it off the flower
nail, balancing it on your fingers underneath the parchment and then lower it onto the baking tray.
Bake meringues at 200 degrees Fahrenheit or 95 degrees Celsius for 85 minutes then turn the oven
off but leave the tray in for an hour before you take it out and the gradual heating and cooling
will prevent the colours from yellowing and also prevent cracking of the meringues. These
meringues are crispy on the outside but when you bite into them the centers are soft and
slightly chewy. In a second i'll show you how to store them to keep them like this. To decorate a
cake with meringues you can push them into a drip while the drip is still sticky, before it sets,
and they'll attach easily. If you baked a meringue on a paper straw you can push the straw into the
cake to make the meringue stand up on top of the cake, leaving the straw visible or covering it
up with more meringues or you can push it all the way down so that the entire straw is inside
the cake. Using scissors or tweezers will make it easy to grip onto the straw and push it down
because if you push down on the meringue itself it will probably crack. To attach meringues to a
cake after the frosting has set, pipe or spread a tiny bit of fresh frosting onto the bottom of
each meringue or straight onto the cake where you want the meringue to go. Then push the meringue
gently into the frosting to attach it. This works on the top of the cake but also on the sides.
When the frosting dot sets it will keep the meringue securely in place.
You can make meringues ahead of time and store them at room temperature or in the fridge or
freezer. They should be separated by wax paper or parchment paper so that they don't stick to each
other and they need to be in an airtight container like a tupperware, which keeps them crispy and
this way they won't get soggy or sticky. I can't wait for you to try these meringues! Get the
recipe and lots more free recipes and tutorials on www.britishgirlbakes.com and visit my cake school
for courses to learn hundreds of cake decorating techniques and designs! Thanks for watching!