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Shoutout to the guy who told me to freeze my meringue before baking
I was making a lemon tart for a party in Portland and someone at the market said freezing the meringue peaks for 20 minutes before torching would make them super stable. So I piped it, froze it, and went to brûlée it... and the whole thing just slumped into a sad, flat puddle the second the heat hit. My kitchen smelled like burnt sugar for hours. Has anyone else had a kitchen hack backfire spectacularly?
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vera297mo ago
Oh man, that "sad, flat puddle" is the worst feeling. I wonder if the issue was the meringue itself, not the freezing. If it wasn't whipped to really stiff peaks first, the structure just wasn't there to hold up, and the freezing just delayed the collapse. I've had better luck just making sure the meringue is super stiff and piping it onto a completely cool filling right before I torch it. Freezing seems like it would create a huge temperature shock.
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karen_hill36mo ago
Totally agree about the temperature shock thing. I tried freezing a meringue topping once because a recipe swore it would make it more stable, and it was a total disaster. It looked okay coming out of the freezer, but then it just started sweating and slid right off the pie in one sad sheet. Your point about stiff peaks is so true, that's the real foundation. If it's not stiff enough to begin with, nothing you do later is gonna save it.
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keith1647mo ago
Freezing a meringue sounds like a great way to make a science fair volcano, just tastier.
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jordan5117mo ago
Sounds like a classic case of trusting random advice too much. Not every kitchen fail needs a deep post-mortem.
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