Merengue con Zumbaglione

This week CarolAnn and I had the pleasure of making a lil Meringa con Zabaglione

Meringa:

• 1 cup superfine sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 5 egg whites, at room temperature

Zabaglione Custard:

• 5 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup of superfine sugar
• 2 tbsp almond extract

Because we did not have super fine sugar, we ran a cup and two teaspoons of granulated white sugar through a food processor for 30 seconds. This gave us the fine sugar that would dissolve nicely when we put it in half a cup of water and began to heat it so it would dissolve and create a simple syrup.

While waiting for the water to reach the right temperature we separated 5 egg whites from their yolks, added 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar, and began to beat them furiously until we achieved soft peaks.

Once the soft peaks had been attained, we added the water and sugar mixture once it had reached ~236 big ones Fahrenheit. We knew that the water/sugar mixture was ready to be added to the egg whites once it formed a soft ball after being dropped into cool water.

We then continued to beat the egg white mixture while slowly adding the water/sugar mixture until the whites formed stiff peaks.

We then stuck the beaten egg whites into the oven, that had been preheated to 200 big ones Fahrenheit. We then left them there for two hours while they cooked, rotating them so they all received equal amounts of heat.

Next we did a whole bunch of waiting, and when the meringe had half an hour left we began to make the zabaglione. We started by boiling about an inch of water in a pot, and once it got there we put a metal bowl with the five spare egg yolks, a half cup of super fine sugar, and two teaspoons of almond extract on top of the pot with the boiling water.

We stirred the zabaglione until we were able to see tracks from the whisk in the sauce. Then we removed it from heat and set it onto a kitchen towel and kept stirring. However because the bowl retained the heat, the custard overcooked and was not as runny as it should’ve been. To remedy this we could have put the metal bowl into an ice bath to cool it faster.

At this point, we were able to pull the meringa out of the oven, and they were a nice golden brown color.

Next we piped the zabaglione into the finished meringas, and topped them with berries.

1.What chemical changes occurred when you made the meringue/meringa? What did you observe that told you these chemical changes were happening?

The proteins in the egg white denatured due to the agitation by beating. We used a hand beater to whip the egg whites, watching them go from clear and liquidy to opaque and fluffy.

2.What was responsible for the thickening of the zabaglione as you stirred it over the hot water bath?

The cooking of the eggs with the denaturing and coagulation of the protein which thickens the zabaglione.

3.Overheating (too fast and or too hot) the zabaglione can leave you with “scrambled eggs” – a lumpy grainy mess of clumps in watery liquid. What is happening in this case?

In this case, the eggs are getting too hot and the proteins and fats end up lumping together, excluding the water from the mixture, making it thick and lumpy.