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There's A Trick To Mischievous Meringues

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By MARY A. KEITH

Tribune correspondent

Published: March 22, 2009

Q. I tried to make meringues last week. The recipe says to bake at 175 degrees for 90 minutes or until browned. Mine were in the oven for more than two hours and still didn't get brown. The insides were still soft, too. Should I increase the heat or the time when I try them again?

A. Comparing recipes in various baking books I have here, I don't find any that use 175 degrees. Some use 200 degrees and others as much as 325 degrees. So, I'd first increase the temperature some, at least to 200 degrees. What you didn't mention, but all these references call for, is after a baking time, turn off the oven and let the meringues sit an additional 30 minutes to two hours to finish drying. That can be particularly helpful here in our humid climate.

Q. Is there such a thing as sugar-free honey?

A. Not from bees, but on the shelf there are things being marketed as sugar-free honey. They are like sugar-free maple-flavored pancake syrup but with a different set of flavorings. They're supposed to taste like honey, but according to some of the comments I found online it's not a very good imitation. Most seem to be sweetened with xylitol and thickened with gums. Xylitol is a sugar alcohol, so it has half the calories of sugar. They're sugar-free but not calorie-free. Sugar alcohols usually have a slight minty aftertaste, and a tendency to cause diarrhea if you eat too much. Don't go overboard with it.

Q. Is it safe to freeze 1 percent milk? I tried it and now it seems really watery. Shaking didn't seem to help it any.

A. It is safe to freeze milk. However the freezing often reverses the homogenization. It allows fat to separate instead of staying evenly mixed throughout the milk. Sometimes you can see a thin layer of fat, like a shiny skin, on top of the milk. Simply shaking it won't mix the fat back in. Probably the best you can do at home to give it a little more body and whiteness would be to mix a couple of spoonfuls of powdered nonfat milk into each glassful. The powdered milk will add calcium and protein, no fat and very few calories. But it will make it look and taste thicker.

Mary A. Keith, a nutritionist and health agent at Hillsborough County Extension, can be reached at (813) 744-5519 or mkeith@ufl.edu.

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