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Apropos of nothing in particular, a question about meringue. Where do people stand on the question of oven temperature and cooking time? All the cookery books and TV programmes I have seen say that the object is not to cook the meringue but to dry it, and so you should have a very cool oven and keep it in there for several hours. The problem with this approach from my point of view is that it always seems to result in something largely indistinguishable from those horrible chemical-laden white things you get in packets. I have always cooked meringues at quite a high temperature (Gas Mark 6 or 7) for only 40 minutes or so, which produces to my mind a more pleasant texture, with a crunchy slightly caramelised exterior and a slightly gooey centre. The silly thing is that most of the TV cooks seem to follow up their slow careful drying process by waving a blowtorch over the thing to get the caramelised effect they could have achieved by cooking it at a higher temperature in the first place. Obviously it does depend on the purpose of the meringue. A drier, sturdier texture is required for a pavlova, as otherwise the result would collapse into a pile of slop. Other opinions? --m
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