Meringue is two ingredients: egg white and sugar, roughly twice as much sugar as white by weight. Everything separating a crisp shell from a glossy cloud that holds a peak for hours comes down to one question, which is when the sugar meets the white and how hot it is when it does. There are three professional answers, and a pastry kitchen keeps all three.
One ingredient, three methods
- French. Raw whites are whipped and caster sugar is rained in as they climb. It is the fastest and the least stable, so it goes straight into the oven. This is the method behind a baked shell that shatters on the outside and stays marshmallowy in the middle.
- Swiss. Whites and sugar are warmed together over a pan of water until the sugar dissolves and the mixture feels smooth between the fingers, then whipped off the heat. It comes out denser, silkier and far more stable than French.
- Italian. Sugar is cooked to a syrup at around 118 degrees and poured in a thin thread into whites already whipping, so the syrup cooks the white as it goes. It is the most stable of the three and will sit on a dessert for a day without weeping.
Why a pastry chef picks one over another
Stability is the whole argument. Meringue heading straight into an oven does not have to survive on its own, so French is the sensible choice and its lightness is an advantage. Meringue going onto a finished dessert that will be carried, chilled and cut hours later has to hold its shape and its moisture, which is where Swiss and Italian earn their extra steps. Texture follows the same logic: the more the sugar is dissolved before whipping, the tighter and glossier the result.
Where to taste the difference
The Lemon Tart Mini is the clearest example in the cabinet: a shortcrust base made with no added gluten, a light lemon mousse, and a crown of toasted meringue that has to stand up to the acidity underneath without collapsing into it. The Hot Chocolate Mini Cake uses toasted meringue over spiced chocolate sponge and ganache for a different job entirely, sweetness against depth rather than against sharpness. On the Lemon Blueberry Cake, meringue appears as dry batons scattered over tres leches ganache, there for the snap. And the passionfruit pavlova in the petit four range is a hand-piped shell, crisp outside and soft inside, filled with passionfruit curd. Four uses, four different textures, one pair of ingredients. The rest of the mini desserts range shows how often it turns up.
Toasting, and what it does to the flavour
A blowtorch does more than colour the top. It caramelises the sugar at the surface only, putting a thin bitter edge against the plain sweetness underneath and firming the outside enough to keep the ridges. Go too far and you taste scorch rather than caramel; stop early and you have added nothing but colour. The line between the two is about two seconds wide, which is hard to learn from a book.
Learning it with your hands, and who to bring
Dhi trained at French and Italian culinary schools, has more than eighteen years in patisserie, taught at La Salle University and ran his own culinary school for eight years, and the story behind the patisserie explains how that ended up in Christchurch. Our public classes are capped at four people, which is the number that matters here. Book two of the four places and you and whoever comes with you are half the room, close enough to the bench to see the syrup thread and ask why it is still grainy. Classes run from $130 to $180 a head, taking in the choux pastry class and the chocolate class with tempering; the class page lists the decorating levels.
Ordering and visiting
Most things need two days' notice, and a petit four tray needs seven; a tray holds fifteen pieces, all made with no added gluten, as is the base of the Lemon Tart Mini. Our kitchen is small and without exclusive production areas for all of our different recipes, so traces may occur, and nothing is guaranteed safe for severe coeliac disease. The No Added Gluten Cakes & Desserts collection lists the rest. Collection is from our patisserie inside The Welder on Welles Street in the central city, and we do not deliver or courier anything. We are open 10am to 6pm Tuesday to Friday and 10am to 3pm Saturday, and the frequently asked questions page covers the rest.
