# 3 doubts about deserts (chemical reactions)



## peixeescorpiao (Jun 22, 2011)

Ok, hi everybody!

I have here 3 doubts about my deserts. Two of them are about my recipe of Tiramisú, the other about french merengue. My book doesn`t explain enough.

1 -  why should I cook sugar and water until 121C and add it into egg yolks while it`s beating slowly ? What`s the chemical process inside this action and it`s purpose?

2 - why the cream  should be cold if my intention is to do chantilly?

3 - why we need to emulsify sugar and egg whites in the water bath till 50C when doing french merengue?


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## LS50HifiSpeaker (Apr 1, 2011)

1 - why should I cook sugar and water until 121C and add it into egg yolks while it`s beating slowly ? What`s the chemical process inside this action and it`s purpose?

Well basically, heating sugar to 118C to be exact (soft ball). When sugar reach certain temperature it change its properties, hence getting chewy/ firm/glossy meringue at the end result. There is alot of terminology for each state (temperature reach) soft ball, firm ball, hard ball, hard crack. Different stages has different result and usage. And why not purely egg white? because adding hot sugar into egg it kill off bacteria by temeprature.

Refer over here for your reference http://www.joyofbaking.com/StagesOfCookedSugar.html

2 - why the cream should be cold if my intention is to do chantilly?

Chantily and Meringue is total different thing, Chantily is whipped cream with icing sugar. It is store in chilled temperature because cream is fats, and fats is volatile/sensitive to temperatue. so it must be kept chilled/pipe chilled

3 - why we need to emulsify sugar and egg whites in the water bath till 50C when doing french merengue?

French meringue? water bath? i think you are referring to swiss meringue, it is to sterilize/ kill off bacterial by hitting certain degree C, and cooking egg white/egg yolk it is much more stable compare to french meringue which use raw egg


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## peixeescorpiao (Jun 22, 2011)

Oh yes! It`s swiss not french! Sorry about that.

I always see that beating yolk with sugar (not just hot) changes it`s color, do you think this is due to air and speed?

Thank you


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## kaiquekuisine (Apr 11, 2013)

PeixeEscorpiao said:


> Oh yes! It`s swiss not french! Sorry about that.
> 
> I always see that beating yolk with sugar (not just hot) changes it`s color, do you think this is due to air and speed?
> 
> Thank you


Well my theory is that since you are beating egg yolks your mixing air into them.

Thus the space in between molecules grows as more air enters and mixes with the yolks. Scientifically speaking the yolks arent changing color...they are technically expanding.

Now when dealing with a cooking process the result and explanation differ.


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## peixeescorpiao (Jun 22, 2011)

Ok, but people have told me (and I tasted it), that when you just mix sugar and yolk untill it (even when it`s not hot sugar) it has no taste of yolk, but if you don`t beat it enough, it brings to your mounth a horrible memory of egg. I always wanted to know why it happens.


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## kaiquekuisine (Apr 11, 2013)

<_< maybe because beating in the sugar is a form of mixing the sugar and yolk together duh...

If you dont mix it enough the sugar will just sit at the bottom...therefore will not mix with egg.

This is pretty elementary stuff... are you sure your a sous chef /img/vbsmilies/smilies/rolleyes.gif


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## peixeescorpiao (Jun 22, 2011)

no


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