The Meringue Girls Cookbook

We bought this cookbook for the cover. Really, we did. It is a book about meringues. Who among us hasn't made meringues. My Mother loved them. She, unfortunately, never made the clear connection between the humidity outside and the outcome of the meringues. There meringues are not my mother's meringues.

Here's the back story. Two young cooking school grads decide to team up and go on a cooking show to take a product from the kitchen to the marketplace, but, alas they have no product. Cupcakes have been done...and done and done anddoneanddoneanddone. Then there were cake pops and cookie pops and pie pops and well, pie. Then Alex Hoffler and Stacey O'Gorman thought of the simple meringue.

They perfected a meringue. Made it bite-sized, gave it exceptional flavors, and then made it beautiful and The Meringue Girls were born. Soon after, The Meringue Girls Cookbook was born. The biggest complaint about the book is about the book. That is, its a book about meringues. There are people out there who complain that it is a book about meringues. Basically a two ingredient one-trick pony.

Seriously, if you made meringues like this

you would not be complaining.

Meringue Girls Mixture

150g free-range egg whites (5 medium eggs)

300g caster sugar

Start by lining a large baking sheet with baking paperLine a deep tray with baking paper and heat 300g caster sugar at 200C until the edges are just beginning to melt. Heating the sugar helps it to dissolve in the egg white more quickly, creating a glossy and more stable mixture.Now, turn the oven down to 100C.

Add egg whites to clean bowl of a stand mixer. At first whisk slowly allowing small stabilizing bubbles to form, then increase the speed until the egg whites form medium peaks.Using a large spoon, add the sugar spoon by spoon while continuing to whisk. It is ready once you have a full bodied, stiff and glossy mixture (about 5 minutes).

Turn a disposable piping bag inside out, and use a paintbrush to paint stripes of natural food colouring on the inside. Fill the piping bag ensuring there are no air bubbles, and cut the tip off to the size of a 20p piece.

Pipe small kisses onto a lined baking tray. Bake for 30-40 minutes. Its good to keep our meringues mallowy and soft in the middle, so take them out of the oven as soon as they lift off the baking paper with the base intact.

 

The Meringue Girls offer up a detailed, three page version for their meringue, so you will need the book. Remember my Mother? This is my Mother's recipe in grams. She use a cup of egg whites and two cups of sugar. She made them for years; every Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter. One in every four batches screwed up. Yes, there are only 2 ingredients, but it is trickier than one might think. My Mother made vanilla meringues. Sometimes she added pecans. That was it. But the world of meringuey goodness is as vast one one's imagination. So grab a copy and get creative. Remember, one only needs two ingredients!

*Update. Had a formatting problem! hope we worked it out.

Side Orders

John Egerton has been writing about Southern food forever. He was in the forefront of writers who gave a voice to the foodways of the South. More importantly, Egerton gave voice to the history of the food of the South. He never simply ate people’s food he asked them about their history. This detail makes Egerton that rare combination of cookbook author and anthropologist, a storyteller who spends as much time telling you a story as he does cooking the food.

Side Orders is Egerton’s second book and it is filled with the tall tales and hard facts that comprise Southern culinary heritage. He waxes poetic on the joys and revelations of sweet tea, concerned that the “inventor” of sweet tea has been lost to history and therefore has no gigantic bronze statue marking their contribution.

“It’s the South’s gift to a thirsty world, and it may prove to be the region’s most important contribution to peace and harmony among nations.”

“The wonder is not that Southerners drink so much of it, but rather that the rest of the world drinks so little.”

Next to sweet tea, Southerners love their soft drinks and Egerton walks us through the vast history of sugary concoctions produced as curatives by drugstore pharmacists. Here’s a list.

Dr. Pepper -- Rural Retreat, Virginia
Coco-Cola -- Atlanta, Georgia
Pepsi Cola – New Bern, North Carolina
Barq’s Root Beer – Biloxi, Mississippi
Buffalo Rock Ginger Ale -- Birmingham, Alabama
RC Cola – Columbus, Georgia
Blenheim Ginger Ale – Blenheim, South Carolina
Double Cola --- Chattanooga, Tennessee
Gatorade – Gainesville, Florida

Egerton fails to mention my particular favorite, Cheerwine, which began as Mint Cola in Maysville, Kentucky.

In Southern households, fall ushers in the season of holiday candy making. This is a good place point out that, in the South, if we find something that works, we just grab it and claim it!

Million Dollar Fudge is one of those recipes. You will be hard pressed to find a family in the South that doesn’t have one member who makes fudge for every holiday.

Edgerton attributes the first printing of a recipe for “Million Dollar Fudge” to the Women’s National Press Club in Washington, D.C., whose fundraising cookbook featured a recipe by then First Lady, Mamie Eisenhower. She included a fudge recipe she made for her future husband when they were courting. Ike called it her “Million Dollar Fudge” and the name stuck.

Mr. and Mrs. Eisenhower on their wedding day

Million Dollar Fudge

Into a large, heavy cooking pot, put 4-1/2 cups of sugar, a 12-ounce can of evaporated milk, 1 stick of butter, and 1 teaspoon of salt. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil and cook it for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then turn off the heat and add the followings: 1 12-ounce package of semi-sweet chocolate drops, 1 8-ounce bar of milk chocolate, 4 4-ounce bars of German’s sweet chocolate, and 1 large jar of marshmallow creme. Stir until all the chocolate is melted and well mixed, then add 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and 4 cups of pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped. When all the ingredients are thoroughly combined, pour the fudge onto a buttered cookie sheet and spread it out to a thickness of about 1 inch. Cut it in squares when it cools and store it in tins.

Well, Mamie Eisenhower may not have been a Southerner, but in the broadest sense, Washington, D.C. is considered by some to be “Southern” so we get custody of Million Dollar Fudge, and no one could take better care of it.

How To Feed Your Friends With Relish

My friend Sandra made a quick trip across the pond, though she didn't make it to West Virginia, some books did. Sandra hauled several cookbooks with her from London and mailed them to me. It was the next best thing to a visit. On of the books was How To Feed Your Friends With Relish, by Joanna Weinberg.

It is a lovely book, filled with recipes and tips for entertaining. She begins the book as any good hostess might, by introducing us to all her friends and family. Not drawn to the domestic side of life as a child, no one is more surprised than Weinberg, herself, that she became the chronicler of entertaining.

It is that transition from having no desire to laying a table, to becoming the person that loves to entertain, that gives Weinberg her voice. He style of entertaining is simple and laid back, preferring to concentrate on the people around her and not the trappings of space. Her recipes are straightforward and simple, though not at all boring.

Check out this chocolate recipe:

Fresh chocolate orange turrón

500g blanched almonds
200g orange-flavoured dark chocolate, chopped
100g icing sugar
pared zest of 1 unwaxed orange, cut into fine strips
cocoa, for dusting

Line a baking sheet or tin with greaseproof paper.
Grind the blanched almonds in a blender or food processor until they are as fine as possible --this will take 4 or 5 minutes with it screaming full blast.
Add the chocolate, icing sugar and orange zest and whiz on until the chocolate is fully blended (you can see by the colour). It will probably ball up like pastry as it will get warm and soft from the heat of the blades, which is when you'll be done.
Spread the mixture out on the lined sheet so that it's about 1.5 -2cm thick, then leave it to cool in the fridge. Cut into 2cm squares and dust with a little cocoa before serving.

this is a great little party treat, or a treat in and of itself!

Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It

We seem to have had several cookbooks extolling things that "Can't" and "Couldn't " get done. so here a book that boldly tells you what you can do.

Karen Solomon’s Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It fulfills her desire to produce a kind of Girl Scout manual for the kitchen. She features all the recipes you will need for a fine larder, and you can make them yourself. Truth be told, you probably have all these recipes tucked away somewhere, but gathered together they are the perfect companion for the home cook. Though it doesn’t say as much, this is a great book for ideas on homemade gift giving.

The photographs by Jennifer Martiné make you want to run out and paint the larder chocolate brown, heck they want to make you run out and build a brand new larder.

From beef jerky to marshmallows, crackers to lemon curd, sausage to limoncello, this book is a font of inspiration for every cook out there. I have several recipes for peanut butter cups, but frankly, I just bought Reese's. When I saw the picture of Karen Solomon’s cup’s I knew I had to make them.

Peanut Butter Cups

FILLING
1 1/3 cup fresh roasted and salted peanuts
2 teaspoons honey
1 teaspoon neutral vegetable oil, like canola or sunflower
2 tablespoons confectioner's’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

COATING

2 cups chocolate chips or chopped chocolate

INSTRUCTIONS To make the peanut butter filling, place the liners in your cupcake pan, and have a holding dish standing by. In a food processor, puree the peanuts for 3 to 4 minutes, until very smooth. Add the honey, oil, sugar, vanilla, and salt and puree until completely combined, scraping down the sides as you work.
Tale about 2 teaspoons of the peanut butter mixture into your clean hands, roll into a ball, and flatten into a disk that will fit into the center of the cupcake liner but not touch the sides. Shape the remaining 11 centers. The peanut butter should be evenly distributed.
To prepare the coating, in a microwave safe bowl heat the chocolate on high for 1 minute, and stir well with a fork to distribute the heat. Heat for one minute more, and stir again. Heat for an additional 30 to 60 seconds, stirring thoroughly. The chocolate should be melted and quite satiny and you should be able to drop it in ribbons from the end of the fork.
To assemble the cups, working quickly, spoon about 2 teaspoons of melted chocolate into the bottom of each liner, being careful to coat the bottom in a complete, thin layer, and to coat the sides half way up. about Gently drop each of the peanut butter disks into the center of a cup, and give it a gentle tap to secure it in the chocolate (but don’t push it all the way through to the bottom). Cover each center with an additional teaspoon of chocolate covering the top completely and allowing it to surround the sides of the peanut butter, enclosing it completely. Gently smooth the tops with back of a spoon or by giving the pan a gentle shake. Let it sit undisturbed for at least 4 hours, until the cups harden completely.

First one to make these wins their merit badge.