Food & Cooking Recipes Dessert & Treats Recipes Basic Italian Meringue 3.1 (29) This is our go-to recipe for Baked Alaska and other dessert toppings. Close Yield: 2 cups Jump to recipe When you want a meringue to finish in the oven, freeze, or hit with your kitchen torch, turn to Italian meringue, which is the most stable meringue type. It's beautifully thick and shiny—which makes it just right for smoothing over Lemon Meringue Pie or finishing spectacular individual Baked Alaskas. Like other types of meringue, Italian meringue is all about egg whites and sugar. Those main ingredients are transformed with a little water, corn syrup, cream of tartar (which helps stabilize the egg whites), and a touch of salt. Our Italian meringue recipe guides you through the process, including cooking the sugar into a syrup and whipping that hot sugar syrup into egg whites to create the glossy mixture. How to Store Hard-Boiled Eggs So They Stay Fresh for Up to a Week Italian Meringue Basics Meringue is truly magic. Clear viscous egg whites are transformed into fluffy white clouds simply by whipping in sugar and air. As you whip the egg whites, the egg proteins unfold and bond around air bubbles. More whipping means the bubbles break down and the protein gets stretched thinner and thinner. The bubbles become so tiny we can no longer see them—and the egg whites get that glossy white texture that's similar to shaving cream. (For this Italian meringue, we add cream of tartar to stabilize the egg whites.) There are three main types of meringue: French, Swiss, and Italian. French is the simplest and Italian is the most involved to make. It requires cooking a sugar syrup rather than whipping sugar directly into the egg whites, but there is a payoff for that extra work: as mentioned, Italian meringue is the most stable of the three. And because it uses cooked sugar syrup, it's safe to eat without any additional cooking. Italian meringue is also extremely versatile. Use it for toppings, buttercream frosting, meringue pies, to aerate mousses, and more. Making Meringue Is Easy—All You Need Are 2 Ingredients and Our Expert Tips Why do we call for room-temperature egg whites for this recipe? They whip up faster than cold ones. Directions Make sugar syrup: Bring sugar, water, and corn syrup to a boil in a small saucepan, stirring until sugar dissolves. Cook, undisturbed, until syrup registers 248°F on a candy thermometer. Use a wet pastry brush to wipe down the sides of the pan and clean off any sugar granules as you make the syrup. This prevents granules from caramelizing on the sides and the sugars from crystallizing in the mixture as it cools. Whisk egg whites: Meanwhile, whisk whites with a mixer on low speed until foamy. Add salt and cream of tartar and whisk: Add salt and cream of tartar. Increase speed to medium, and whisk until soft peaks form, about 8 minutes. Add sugar syrup: Reduce speed to low, and pour hot syrup down side of bowl in a slow, steady stream. Beat meringue: Increase speed to high, and beat until mixture stops steaming, about 3 minutes. Use immediately. 6 More Meringue Recipes to Try: Lemon Meringue Semifreddi Italian Meringue Buttercream French Meringue Cookies Simple Meringue Pavlova With Raspberry Curd and Berries Vanilla-Raspberry Baked Alaska Updated by Victoria Spencer Victoria Spencer Victoria Spencer is an experienced food editor, writer, and recipe developer. She manages the decorvow recipe archive and is always curious about new ingredients and the best techniques. She has been working in food media for over 20 years.