Story, recipe, styling, and watercolors by Lisa Golden Schroeder

Photography by Dennis Becker

Of all my prized copper, a huge unlined bowl (complete with a big dent from shipping it home from France) holds the key to an important lesson I learned in cooking school. One day a week my fellow classmates & I learned the essential French techniques of pastry work. Making a pâte a choux for cream puffs, millefeuille or puff pastry dough, and whipping up cream or egg whites for mousses or meringues—by hand. Oh sure, there were modern electric appliances lurking in corners of the kitchen, like a robot-coupe and standing mixer, but Chef Jourant insisted that we knew how to create everything manually first. With the electric hand mixer of my Betty Crocker training dancing in my mind, the thought of whipping up egg whites with just a wire whisk seemed more than a little daunting.

I quickly cleaned any toxic patina from the inside of the bowl with coarse salt and vinegar, making a thick paste to swipe around the interior. A good rinse and no more hesitation to start. The tub of room temperature egg whites that always sat on top of a cabinet (nope, no refrigeration) was at the ready. Scooping some egg into the bowl, I tucked the bowl under my left arm and set to work with a large balloon whisk. To my delight, I slowly, then with more speed as I got my rhythm down, added air until the whites were transformed into a gossamer fluff—in a very few minutes. Sprinkling in a few spoonsful of superfine sugar and continuing to whisk, my meringue was finished long before I believed it could be. The magical exchange of copper ions truly sets the stage for transforming egg whites into billowy meringue. Forget dirtying up extra tools!

light as air…copper + egg