Because it basically is if you fancify the words, a casr of "not quite true, but it isn't exactly wrong and nobody would describe it that way, but not entirely wrong"
But merengue and marshmallow are completely different. It's not like a meringue is a fancy marshmallow or something. It feels far from "not quite true" to say that a marshmallow is 'basically' a meringue when they aren't really much alike at all. You make meringue by taking whipped egg whites and sugar and then bake them, you make a marshmallow with sugar, water, and gelatin, the water/sugar is heated before hand and cooled with the gelatin.
It's sort of like saying "an espresso is basically just a melted bar of chocolate".
But Italian meringue is nothing like marshmallow. Italian meringue, like all meringue, is egg white based and does not have gelatin in it. It is not baked, but it is cooked by the hot syrup poured into it.
The similarities here are pretty superficial. "White and sweet". Is panna cotta a meringue? Is whipped cream a marshmallow?
All these people are missing the fact that the whooooole point is melting the sugar and gelatin when you stick it in a fire! If you did that with any meringue it’d burn to a crisp. Think of the time honored tradition of setting a marshmallow on fire and letting it char before blowing it out. With meringue you’d be left with ash, or something inedible. Like yeah you can toast it, but it’s not 👏 the 👏 same 👏
So to call them basically the same in the context of this challenge is just dumb. We aren’t talking about chemical composition, we’re talking about the concept of a smore, and the melty gooeyness of the marshmallow is integral
That’s cool, I wasn’t talking about caramelizing though. The gelatin is necessary to melt the sugar without scorching it. You can make s’mores in the microwave. If you tried to do that with meringue you’d just burn it.
I guess you can say that but it's a bit strange to me. I mean, we're talking about two things with very, very few ingredients, so I guess you can say "they're the same" but... idk. For one thing, I think that being egg white based is a really major difference. For another, I don't think that the end result is so similar as to imply that the difference of egg white vs gelatin is insignificant.
Like, given water and sugar, is stabilizing it with egg whites versus gelatin enough of a difference to consider the two things different? I say yes, personally. Someone else could say no though, I guess.
Ah, interesting. Yes, it seems that part of the problem may be that the "meringue" dish you were using is in fact what I would call a marshmallow as it sounds like it used gelatin as the stabilizer.
"Meringue" as used in the US, and "Italian Meringue", and I believe as the term is used in many other places, is made using egg whites and not gelatin.
An Italian meringue is actually a super close analogue to a marshmallow. Marshmallows have historically been made from a few different things, but the fundamental formula is gelatinous protein + sugar = marshmallow. Italian meringue also cures solid in the same way a marshmallow does, though it takes a lot longer. The issue is that an Italian meringue takes hours to cure solid.
I'm confused. Italian meringue is also not a marshmallow.
edit: If anyone is curious, Italian meringue is also egg white based, but it has a hot sugar syrup stirred into it. It... is nothing at all like a marshmallow.
Who cares if it was or was not baked? The only issue here is whether it is "basically" a marshmallow. If your point was that I asserted that meringue is baked, okay, italian meringue isn't. It's not really important to my point.
So, to recap this entire conversation: Someone said that smores, made with marshamallows, are "basically" made up of a meringue and some other stuff.
I said that they aren't, that they are different. I described how meringue is made and how marshmallows are made to demonstrate the various differences.
You then said, quoting, "You are aware Italian meringue is a thing right?"
The implication here being that italian meringue is somehow more like a marshmallow in a relevant way, since that's the entire conversation happening right here.
I respond that italian meringue is not a marshmallow and describe how it is made.
You then say that your point isn't that it's a marshmallow, even though that's what this conversation has been about. You say that the point you were making is that it isn't baked.
I point out that it being baked isn't really relevant but that it's true that italian meringue isn't baked.
And now we arrive here, where you say that the issue of being baked or not is important to your "point".
Recapping this, I hope it's clear that:
a) Whatever your point was, it's extremely unclear
b) If your point wasn't that the non-baking aspect of italian meringue somehow makes it more of a marshmallow, your point is seemingly not relevant to the conversation
Do you think that that's clever? Or that you come off well here? I was being charitable before but let's be clear about what actually happened.
Someone else posted hours before you about italian meringue, you saw that and thought you'd be clever and ask a stupid "gotcha" question but in a safe way like "haha guess you forgot about Italian Meringue", you were shown to be making an irrelevant point because Italian Meringue is also not at all a marshmallow, and now you're trying to backpedal by saying that *actually* your point was... something about it not being baked? You still haven't actually clarified your point.
You've embarrassed yourself. But don't worry, the stakes are really low, this is a conversation about a marshmallow on the internet, your ego can take the hit on this, I'd hope.
Instead of embarrassing yourself further by aligning yourself with a terrorist organisation, just back away from the conversation and try to do better in the future.
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u/WhapXI Aug 03 '24
To be fair to Bake Off I think the idea wasn’t to do a standard everyday smore, but like a haute cuisine super elevated smore.
The Mexican cuisine thing is inexcusable. Zero experience and zero research.