What Is Meringue powder and How Can I Use It?
Meringue powder is easier to cook with than it looks. Here's how to choose, use, and store it, what to substitute, and 3 recipes to get you started.
Key Points
- Meringue powder is dried egg white blended with sugar, starch, and a stabilizer.
- It is the pasteurized, shelf-stable standard for piping and flooding royal icing.
- Unlike plain powdered white it carries sugar, so cut a recipe's sugar when subbing.
- Add water a teaspoon at a time; overthinning turns stiff icing into a runny puddle.
- Sealed and dry it keeps over a year; clumping means humidity got in.
What is meringue powder?
Meringue powder is a baking blend built around dried egg whites, cut with sugar, cornstarch, and a stabilizer like gum. Add water and whip, and it behaves like sweetened egg-white foam straight out of a can.
It exists mostly to make royal icing. Decorators use it because it is pasteurized and shelf-stable, and far more forgiving than separating and whipping fresh whites every time.
For the foam itself and how egg-white structure works, see the meringue and egg whites pages.
Powdered Whites Versus Meringue Powder
These two get confused constantly, so the difference is worth pinning down. Plain powdered egg white is just dried albumen, nothing else. Meringue powder is that same dried white already blended with sugar and starch and a stabilizer.
That means meringue powder is not a one-for-one swap for fresh whites or plain powdered white in a meringue, because it carries its own sugar. If you sub it in, dial back the recipe's sugar to compensate.
For piping royal icing, though, meringue powder is the better, steadier choice of the two.
How to Use It
For royal icing, a common starting point is about 2 tablespoons of meringue powder and 2 tablespoons of water beaten with around 2 cups of powdered sugar, then thinned with a little more water to a flooding consistency. Beat it until it turns glossy and holds a ribbon.
It also stabilizes buttercream and stiffens a baked meringue or torte like this Rainbow Meringue Torte, and crisps up drop cookies such as Jane's Amaretti Cookies. For a glaze that sets hard on cookies, see this Gingerbread Icing.
Getting It Right
The grease rule is unforgiving here too. Any fat in the bowl or beater keeps the powder from foaming, so wipe everything clean before you start.
Overthinning is the usual royal-icing mistake. Add water a teaspoon at a time, because a splash too much takes stiff piping icing straight to a runny puddle that will not hold a line.
Underbeating leaves it dull and weak; beat until it is bright white and glossy and the foam holds its shape.
Substitutes
Plain powdered egg white is the closest stand-in, but remember it brings no sugar, so add the sweetener the meringue powder would have supplied.
Fresh egg whites work for most baked applications, roughly 2 tablespoons of reconstituted meringue powder per white, though you lose the pasteurization that makes raw icing safe.
Buying and Storing
Find it with cake-decorating supplies and baking aisles, in cans or tubs from brands like Wilton.
Kept tightly closed in a cool, dry cupboard it lasts well over a year, since the powder is stable as long as moisture stays out. Clumping means humidity has crept in. Mixed royal icing is best used within a couple of days and re-whipped if it separates.
Quick facts
- In Chinese
- 酥皮粉
- British (UK) term
- Meringue powder
- en français
- poudre de meringue
- en español
- polvo de merengue
Recipes using meringue powder
There are 3 recipes that contain this ingredient.
Rainbow Meringue Torte
Rainbow meringue torte: four crisp meringue discs layered with chocolate, mint chip, and strawberry ice cream, topped with whipped cream and toasted almonds. A make-ahead frozen showpiece dessert.
Jane's Amaretti Cookies
Ground almonds and cinnamon fold into stiff meringue to create these chewy Italian amaretti cookies where lemon zest and vanilla cut through the sweetness with bright, aromatic notes.
Gingerbread Icing
Gingerbread icing that dries rock-hard for gluing gingerbread houses and piping crisp royal-icing details. Three ingredients, stiff peaks, no egg whites.
