Air cakes (meringues)

We think not many people know that everyone is well-known and beloved domestic air cakes and French meringues are the same confectionery, which traces its history to the 17th century. Meringue cakes got their original name thanks to the French word meringue. It is also noteworthy that the authorship of air cakes is disputed by residents of two iconic states for the world culinary tradition.

Both residents of sunny Italy and sophisticated refined French, as well as masters of culinary art, the Swiss brought thousands of recipes to gastronomy and gave the world hundreds of real culinary masterpieces. Italians claim that the chef Gasparini was the first to come up with the recipe and made air cake merengues. True, the chef lived in Switzerland, so this country also considers meringues to be its invention. However, France has a more weighty argument in its favor - documentary evidence dated 169

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Francois Massialo's cookbook describes a recipe for air cakes. There are even separate types of French, Italian, as well as Swiss air cake merengues. In addition, they distinguish between hard or soft air cakes. The first type of confectionery is distinguished by its hard and crisp consistency. The second type of airy meringue cake is not fully baked, so it seems that there is a cream filling inside the meringue.

Domestic air cakes differ in shape from European meringues. In addition, the chemical composition and calorie content of air cakes differ. However, our confectionery product will not be inferior in taste and consumer qualities to foreign equivalents, provided that the cake recipe is followed. As a rule, air cakes are two round or oval-shaped semi-finished products, which are made from meringues layered with cream. The average calorie level of air cakes is 440 Kcal, which are contained in 100 grams of confectionery.

Often they make independent types of desserts based on air cakes, which serve as the basis for the future confectionery. Notably, European meringues and domestic air cakes are often used to garnish finished sweets, confectionery and desserts. For example, for the French masterpiece of pastry art pie "Floating Island" use lemon meringues. Italian merengues or air cakes are made with boiling sugar syrup, and then used as a cake decoration.

In Switzerland, meringues are used mostly to decorate the Pavlov Cake dessert. It is a famous meringue-based cake with fresh fruit (strawberries, kiwi, passion fruit, raspberries). An interesting historical fact, the famous cake was named after the Russian ballerina Anna Matveevna Pavlova, no less popular at the beginning of the 20th century. The ballerina was touring in New Zealand and Australia when, especially for her, local confectioners made a cake based on air cakes, and also named the confection after a celebrity and star of world ballet.