Italian Meringue - egg white

Method

• Add a few drops of lemon juice to the egg whites (this will help the meringue firm up).
• Add some water to a pan followed by the sugar and heat over medium heat.
• Once the mixture starts to bubble a little, start to whisk the egg whites.
• Whisk with a hand mixer on a high speed until the mixer leaves a trail in the meringue.
• Time your whisking to coincide with the boiling of the syrup mixture.
• Don't stop whisking though.
• Once the syrup reaches 118C, remove from the heat and dribble into the mixture in thin threads.
• Dribble it in so that it falls between to the 2 blades of the mixer, which should be set to a medium-high speed.
• Once the syrup is in, keep whisking on a high speed until the mixture cools down.
• Once the bottom of the bowl reaches body temperature, it's ready.
• The peaks of the meringue should hang down a little bit at this point.
• Add the meringue to mousse or if you have some left over, pipe onto a baking tray and bake for 1 hour at 100C to get baked meringue.
• For buttercream: Add 50 g unsalted butter to 30 g meringue It can be used for macarons and such.