Italian meringue
Hot syrup poured in a thread over whipped whites. This is the meringue that holds: glossy, firm and stable, ready to go into an ice cream without vanishing.
Ingredients
For 1 kgTick each ingredient as you get it ready.
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Step by step
9 steps · follow the order for the best result
Chef's notes
- ·Do not skip the cold ageing: it hydrates proteins and stabiliser and clearly improves the texture.
- ·The serving temperature depends on your recipe: if you formulate to a softer PAC than your freezer (say -11 °C with the chest at -18 °C), temper it for 5–10 min before serving; if the PAC matches your freezer, it can be eaten straight out.
- ·Why formulate at -11 and not at -18 °C: even though your freezer sits at -18 °C, formulating at -11 makes the ice cream tastes better — at -18 it is so cold that the taste buds barely pick up the flavour and the fat is slow to melt in the mouth. And keeps better: ice cream formulated at -11 and kept at -18 has less free water, suffers less from Ostwald ripening (ice crystals joining and growing) and keeps its creaminess longer.
- ·Keep your own notes: write down the POD and PAC that work best with your machine.
How it
should turn out
Firm, glossy and silky, with the whites cooked by the hot syrup: that is what stops it collapsing. Inside the ice cream it neither disappears nor weeps, and it brings volume without adding weight or fat.
Everything about this Italian meringue
The syrup goes in at 120 °C, poured in a thread over the whipped whites. Not a degree less: below that it doesn't set and the meringue collapses.
Ingredients and what each one is for
The fruit or the cocoa bring the flavour. The sugars do the quiet work: they give body and keep the sauce from hardening inside the ice cream. Inulin adds solids with almost no sweetness, and pectin thickens just enough for it to stay fluid when cold rather than set.
How to ripple it
A ribbon is not churned: it is made separately, chilled all the way and folded into the already churned ice cream. What you have to control is that it stays soft at −18 °C. Short on sugar it turns into a stone inside the tub; with too much, it runs and ends up staining the whole ice cream.
Storage and common mistakes
Keep it covered and cold, and add it once the ice cream is already churned, never into the mix. The two usual mistakes: swirling it warm, so instead of drawing the ribbon it melts and mixes everything, and using too much. The ribbon accompanies, it does not rule.
Recommended for this recipe
Equipment and ingredients that make the difference.
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Answers to your questions
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