22 Heavenly Meringue Desserts

By Food & Wine
Updated September 25, 2018
These heavenly desserts include a zebra icebox cake, a coconut baked alaska with pineapple meringue, and devil's food cupcakes with espresso meringue.
Start Slideshow

1 of 22

Blueberry Meringue Tarts

Credit: © Dana Gallagher
Go to Recipe

Pastry chef Nicole Krasinski's buttery, flaky cookies are perfect for sandwiching a juicy compote of plump blueberries, topped with a light, silk meringue. Krasinski developed this simple dessert for her mother, who adores these flavors. When she put it on the menu at San Francisco's Rubicon, customers swooned over the combination as well; it's the best-selling dessert during the summer.

Advertisement
Advertisement

2 of 22

Cornhusk Meringues with Corn Mousse

Credit: © Con Poulos
Go to Recipe

This beloved and much-Instagrammed dessert--meringues flavored with charred cornhusk powder and filled with a luscious, sweet corn cream--is from chef Enrique Olvera's brand-new cookbook, Mexico from the Inside Out.

3 of 22

Coconut Pavlovas with Tropical Fruit

Go to Recipe

The kiwis and mango that fill these airy, low-fat meringues are high in vitamin C and other antioxidants. The low-calorie passion fruit seeds add tartness and intense tropical flavor.

Advertisement

4 of 22

Zebra Icebox Cake

Credit: © Con Poulos
Go to Recipe

Simple, fun icebox cake is made by layering wafers with whipped cream and refrigerating them until the wafers soften into a cakelike texture. Kim Schwenke creates a dazzling version by alternating a creamy mix of mascarpone and Marsala with layers of homemade chocolate-graham wafers. The finishing touch is fluffy espresso meringue.

5 of 22

Cranberry and Almond Meringue Roulade

Go to Recipe

Chef Helene Henderson is obsessed with cranberries, which remind her of her native Sweden. Here, she serves them with a light, sweet, soft meringue rolled around fluffy whipped cream.

6 of 22

Coconut Baked Alaska with Pineapple Meringue

Go to Recipe

Pastry chef Waylynn Lucas of Fonuts in Los Angeles uses xanthan gum to keep the meringue in her baked Alaska stable after she mixes it with pineapple puree.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

7 of 22

Raspberry Macarons

Credit: Michael Turek
Go to Recipe

These are among the simplest macarons, made with only sugar, almond flour, egg whites and red food coloring—and a filling of raspberry jam.

8 of 22

Mango-Basil Vacherin

Credit: © Kate Mathis
Go to Recipe

Yigit Pura perfected this crisp-creamy French dessert while working at restaurant Daniel in New York City. His updated version combines little lime meringue kisses with basil ice cream and sweet mango sorbet.

9 of 22

Frozen Chocolate-Chip Meringata

Go to Recipe

Meringata—Italian for "meringue cake"—is an elegant yet homey frozen dessert of whipped cream sandwiched between meringue rounds. Rolando Beramendi slices the meringata and serves it with a warm chocolate-espresso sauce.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

10 of 22

Hazelnut-and-Chocolate Meringue Cake

Credit: © Stephanie Foley
Go to Recipe

This extraordinary dessert, made with crisp chocolate-hazelnut meringue and whipped cream, is simple to make. But pastry chef Daniel Jasso of Portland, Oregon’s Genoa restaurant has nicknamed it "the beast," because slicing it can be tricky—the meringue tends to crumble. The solution: Freeze the cake, cut it with a serrated knife and let it return to room temperature before serving.

11 of 22

Summer Berries with Cumin Meringues and Crème Fraîche

Credit: Keller + Keller
Go to Recipe

This recipe combines antioxidant-packed summer berries with an easy-to-make, protein-rich meringue. A touch of cumin gives the meringues an exotic earthiness, but they're equally delicious without the spice.

12 of 22

Coconut-Pistachio Meringues

Go to Recipe

Delicate and substantial at the same time, Nick Malgieri's pistachio-topped coconut meringues are chewy on the inside and crisp on the outside. For the best results, bake them on a dry day: Humidity can make meringues disappointingly soft.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

13 of 22

Not Your Usual Lemon Meringue Pie

Credit: © Quentin Bacon
Go to Recipe

In her version of lemon meringue pie, Gale Gand forgoes a traditional crust for quick-baked sheets of sugared phyllo dough, which she layers with house-made lemon curd and a brown-sugar meringue. The recipe, a classic at Tru restaurant in Chicago, appears in Gand's book Butter Sugar Flour Eggs (Clarkson Potter). At home, use good quality store-bought phyllo dough and lemon curd.

14 of 22

Minty Lime Baked Alaska

Go to Recipe

Instead of making a butter cake, F&W’s Grace Parisi created this recipe with nonfat angel food cake. Inspired by lime- and mint-scented candles, she tops the cake with lime sorbet mixed with chopped mint and rum.

15 of 22

Devil's Food Cupcakes with Espresso Meringue

Go to Recipe

Karen Hatfield of Hatfield's in Los Angeles usually prepares mini versions of this recipe for her petit four plate, topping the rich, chocolaty cupcakes with a fluffy swirl of espresso meringue and some cocoa-nib dust. At home, instead of making bite-size cupcake snacks, bake full-size cupcakes in standard muffin pans. Sprinkle the frosted cupcakes with a bit of cocoa powder mixed with instant espresso.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

16 of 22

Campari Meringues with Baked Peaches and Raspberry Sauce

Go to Recipe

Baking peaches brings out their sweetness and also makes them meltingly soft. If you can find perfectly ripe and drippy summer peaches, however, you don't need to bake them. Simply blanch them whole in boiling water for about 10 seconds to loosen the skins, then peel and slice them.

17 of 22

Chilled Grapefruit-Caramel Meringue Pie

Credit: © Tina Rupp
Go to Recipe

Most pastry chefs love lemon and orange. Deborah Snyder of Manhattan's Lever House, however, champions the also-ran of the citrus world: grapefruit. In one cold, creamy dessert, she layers pink grapefruit curd in a crunchy graham-cracker crust with caramel sauce and a delicate topping of fluffy meringue.

18 of 22

Spiced Italian Pecan Meringues

Credit: John Kernick
Go to Recipe

“Don’t judge the taste of these cookies by the crags and cracks,” says sous-chef Merrin Mae Gray of L.A.’s Rossoblu. (Their Italian name is brutti ma buoni, “ugly but good.”) The pecans and potent grappa are unexpectedly elegant, and the crisp outsides and chewy centers make these meringues seriously addictive.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

19 of 22

Mom’s Citrus Meringue Pie

Credit: Greg DuPree
Go to Recipe

In 2018, Food & Wine named this recipe one of our 40 best.

20 of 22

Lemon Meringue Pie

Credit: David Malosh
Go to Recipe

A homemade version of creamy sweetened condensed milk gives the tart lemon custard in this pie an especially luscious texture and flavor. The billowy Italian meringue topping browns beautifully under the broiler if you don't have a torch on hand.

21 of 22

Pumpkin Pudding with Mile High Meringue

Credit: © John Kernick
Go to Recipe

Dean Fearing and Jill Bates, the pastry chef at Fearing's, collaborated on this spiced pumpkin pudding covered with meringue swirls. "It's what all Southerners love about their pies, whether they're coconut, chocolate or banana—the meringue," Fearing says.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

22 of 22

Sweet Potato Meringue Pie

Go to Recipe

This sweet-potato pie looks like a pumpkin pie, but the filling is actually made with sweet potato.

Replay gallery

Share the Gallery

Up Next

By Food & Wine