Recipe: Italian meringue

Just so you can finish off your lemon meringue pie, here's a recipe for Italian meringue.  Italian meringue is very versatile and can be used all over the place - lightening buttercreams, pavlovas, macaroons, plate garnishes, and many others.  It's very easy to make, very hard to over whip and very stable as the egg whites have been cooked during the process.  Although I'm giving you a recipe, it's also one of those things you can wing it on once you are familiar with it.  The syrup does need a certain sugar content and viscosity, but beyond that, if you have a sweet tooth, you can make the syrup heavier.  You can get a nice effect if you take the syrup to a light caramel stage, add a bit of water back so it's a syrup again then add it in.  Timing the whipping of the whites to the temperature of the syrup can be a bit tricky, but it gets easier with practice

You will need:

4           egg whites - no yolk traces

200ml  water

200g     sugar

Method:

 - start cooking the syrup in a clean saucepan

 - start whipping the whites at a slow to medium speed

 - if you have a thermometer, take the syrup to 250F / 121C (hard ball), if not, a good rolling boil and thick

 - speed up the mixer to bring the whites to a medium firm peak

 - drizzle the hot syrup between the bowl and the whip in the mixture

 - the meringue should get very glossy and thick

 - slow the mixer down and let the meringue cool - at this point it shouldn't over whip

 - once cool, use at will