I made a lemon poppyseed cake with meringue (no butter, just egg whites and sugar) frosting over the weekend. The first day the cake was outstanding. The meringue was velvety smooth and there wasn't a hint of any grainy taste. The next day (didn't refrigerate the cake overnight) the meringue had a grainy taste to it, similar the a time I didn't cook the egg white/sugar mixture to a high enough temp. Curious if anyone has any ideas why this would happen given that the first day it was perfect. Was it because I didn't refrigerate? Thanks.
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I was hoping someone here was going to answer you. I have a recipe for Lemon Meringue cake from Taste of Home that I was going to try but wanted to avoid this happening to me. You take the meringue putting on baked and filled cake and put in oven on oven proof plate just to brown the meringue. Maybe it should have been stored in the refrigerator but not sure. I was hoping someone here who is more experienced with cakes would know the answer.
Thank you...This one has really been nagging at me. I chatted with another person on a cake blog about this issue and she seems to think that this can happen one of two ways: 1) it starts that way, due to not having high enough heat with the egg/sugar mixture. This definitely wasn't the case. Or 2) through evaporation, which I guess is a possibility. I covered the cake in a glass container, so I don't think there was a whole lot of air getting to it. But, per the recipe, I used a kitchen torch to brown the meringue.
I'm just at a loss because the first day it was soooo good. If I find anything else out I'll be sure to update my post here. Thanks again.
Found this on another forum:
....can go grainy overnight if the sugar crystals are not completely dissolved when whisking over boiling water. They regroup. The same situation can occur when making caramel; if even one sugar crystal is left undissolved, it causes a chain reaction and crystal reformation, leading to graininess. Humidity can also greatly affect this style of meringue icing.
I made an icing one time with chocolate chips, butter, milk,sugar and vanilla extract. It turned out great. The next time I made it, the sugar crystalized and it was horrible. I read where I could add corn syrup which stops the crystallization and also to use 10x sugar instead of regular sugar. I tried making it again using 10x sugar and also adding corn syrup and it turned out fantastic this time. Don't know if using the corn syrup did the trick!! Anyway it worked this last time. Maybe you could have used 10x sugar instead of regular sugar in the egg white frosting.The sugar is so small that it can not crystalize so I am just guessing and really don't know if that would help. I was hoping someone here will be able to tell you more.
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