- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

Papa, help, I'm throwing a bridal shower with some friends and I got volunteered for desserts.

- I've only one word for you, meringue.

Just whip up a few egg white and you'll be amazed at all the elegant dessert you can create like almond floating island in rum custard sauce and buttery caramel.

- [Claudine] Orange vacherin Jeannette, layers of meringue with a frozen orange cream filling.

- Volcano Surprise is my version of Baked Alaska, and a foolproof mocha success cake is made with a rich buttercream between layer of crunchy hazelnut meringue.

So join us from Masterclass in Meringue.

- It's a bridal shower confection.

Next on "Jacques Pepin Celebrates!"

- You told me you were going to do a wedding cake or a engagement party or what are those things?

- Yeah.

- My friend Jennifer is actually getting married and she's a very, very good chef.

So I wanna make something lovely and white and flowery and billowy.

- Meringue, I'm gonna give you a lesson on making different cake with meringue and you can pick- - I love meringue.

- Pick up the one you want.

We're doing a success cake here, which is a meringue with nuts and I'm going to beat the egg white, six egg white.

- You have to use this bowl?

- Well, you can use anything.

You can use a machine.

You can do it by hand.

You can use a stainless steel bowl.

But you cannot use aluminum, which wouldn't work.

And if you use copper, it's the best.

Be sure to clean your copper with vinegar and salt.

That will acidify the egg white.

And often in the egg white, people tell you to put a few drop of lemon juice, citric acid.

- Mm-hmm, yeah.

- Couple of pinch of cream of tartar, tartaric acid, acidic acid, all of that.

That will do the same thing.

- Okay.

- So what I want you to do, we have nuts here, hazelnut, you know, by grabbing them in a towel or by hand you take some of the skin out of it, - [Claudine] Okay.

- They've been roasted in the oven about 10 minutes.

A cup and a half of this, you have some sugar over there and a little bit of starch.

Just put it in the little machine.

You're gonna need it for that.

So here I stir very fast, you see?

I stir very fast to break the white, you know?

So that there are not like a wet bump going around.

And then slowly and you lift it up.

You can hear it.

I'm not touching the bowl.

- Isn't this where you would get in trouble if you touched the bowl when you were like 14 or something?

- Apprentice, the chef will kick you in the rear end if you touch the bowl.

He was a mean chef, you know?

I wouldn't do that to you.

- No, no.

- But look at that.

This goes doing it by hand much faster than machine because I lift up the mixture to inflate it.

So you better do your stuff.

- I'm going.

- So I've got the hazelnuts.

- Sometimes, if you get tired, you know?

- Sugar.

- [Jacques] Everything in there.

- [Claudine] Starch.

- That's it.

- Now where would you like this?

- In there.

- Okay.

In there in with your egg whites?

- Yes, yes, go ahead.

- Okay.

- Whoa, whoa, okay.

- Didn't you say go ahead?

- Okay, go ahead, go ahead, yes.

That's a bit fast, but okay, that's okay, that's it.

- So you see, this doesn't really take long to do.

And now use, you know, the recessed spatula to spread it out nicely like this, to have it all over, you see?

Okay, so this, you wanna put that into your oven, about 350 degrees in those area, about 20, 25 minute.

And I have another one ready here anyway.

- Okay, I'll put this in the oven.

- Yes, but for that, you know?

We need a buttercream.

So here I have about a third of a cup of coffee extract.

Your sugar, we're going to do a syrup here to do a buttercream.

These has to cook a couple of minutes.

- Do you want the cake that's already cool - And you can gimme the cake.

Yes, that's good.

You see the Silpat is still underneath here.

I cannot even carry it upside down.

- Oh, that's sweet.

- Okay, that's good.

So here I give you that and I'm going to trim this.

Okay, I'll cut that in half.

So this is the two side of my cake, you know?

That can go on there for the time being.

Oh, that's about fine.

Okay.

- Okay.

- Now what we have here, you wanna put your egg yolk in there.

- Just three egg yolks?

- Three yolks, yes, okay.

And then we're gonna put the syrup on top of it.

And that has to beat for about 10 minutes to get really fluffy, you know?

It is about that kind of texture, you know?

Thick texture, but oh, the recipe won't work now.

And then, give me the butter over there.

- Wow.

- Okay, put my butter directly in there.

You incorporate it, put the rest of the butter in there.

If the butter is too cold and my pastry cream, it is likely that it may break down.

If it break down, it's going to get all grainy-looking.

And at that point, it's purely a question of temperature.

You know what I do here?

Put that on top of the stove, just- - Just enough to warm it?

- A little bit.

Start melting a little bit of your butter here on the side if it get grainy, you know?

- Oh!

- And then, - Then it'll smooth out?

- You incorporate Yeah, you get that.

It's nice and smooth.

- [Claudine] Oh, wow!

- So buttercream is that type of thing.

It's purely a question of temperature, you know, okay.

Buttercream is very rich and very often those type of cake, you know?

You do them only with buttercream.

I want to put a bit of cream on that one.

And I think that size here, I'll use that size.

Of course now, I'm gonna put some in a pastry bag.

Yeah, clean it up, that's it.

You want to get the whole thing this way in a plate, then put it in the corner of your hand like this and really press.

And now this is with that hand that you turn.

- Oh, okay.

- So all we do here, I wanna do a border of buttercream on the outside because as you say, again, it's quite rich and maybe a little strip in the center.

Okay, this we keep for the top.

So now I need to put the whipped cream there, put it inside, on this side too.

And you can put the trimming on top, Titine.

Just push them in here, here, there.

- Yeah.

- It's good because then you don't waste anything.

- [Jacques] I never waste anything.

You know that.

- Mm-hmm.

- Now this one here, buttercream side down on this way.

Now the rest of the buttercream, you know?

Eat all of it here.

- This is for you.

- Oh yeah, that thing could be on it now.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Put it the long way here from my side.

Yeah.

You see, I'm gonna put some of my buttercream around and a bit on this side.

- Okay.

- Now, that's gonna stick to it anyway, wherever it sticks.

And then, oh, and then on the side, you know?

Take some on your hand like this and you know, press it like this.

- Okay.

- Just gently.

You wanna press?

Go ahead.

- This is messy.

This is fun.

- Yeah, but you pick up all your almond again.

Okay, so your cake is ready.

And then now, we've got that type of cake, you can put a little bit of those chocolate-covered espresso beans.

That will go into the refrigerator until it gets really hard.

It has to set up at least an hour or so.

And again, you cover it so it doesn't pick up any other taste.

Okay, I'm gonna show you another dessert that I did before.

And that dessert, which is here, you know?

Is like a floating island.

Remember often the floating island, the meringue, the said meringue, big tablespoon of meringue or bowl like that - Yeah.

- you poach in water.

This one, I put caramel in the bottom of the pan.

You cook them.

- Oh.

- And the mixture here is this almond for the cake.

It had the almond in it.

So you cool it off overnight in the refrigerator, it's perfectly fine.

But when you're ready to unmold it, the caramel get too tough underneath.

So you know, you can have warm water like here or warm it up a little bit, you know, on top of the stove or into warm water so that your caramel, - Just to soft?

- Yeah, so that it release a little bit, you know?

So that's very nice.

We're gonna serve it in that big plate here.

- Okay, well this is gonna be just huge.

- And you know what?

In the refrigerator, I have some, a caramel custard, oh, not a caramel custard, a regular custard, which is a caramel anglaise we call, which goes around that.

So you want to get it for me?

- Okay.

- Now look at that, yes.

In that caramel, you know what I did?

- No.

- I put a little bit of butter when the caramel was finished, you know, a little bit of butter and a tablespoon of water and that softened my caramel.

You see a little bit?

So I can use that caramel to put it on top.

- Okay, I have a question for you.

- Yes?

- I opened up the refrigerator and there is the most beautiful cake.

- Oh, yes, yes.

Okay, you wanna bring that cake too?

- Yes I do.

- I'll tell you what it is.

- [Claudine] Okay, thanks.

- And this, of course, is are caramel anglaise.

The caramel anglaise is a custard cream, which is made with egg yolk, sugar, bit of vanilla, and this is beautiful.

- Ooh.

- This is really beautiful.

- Okay.

- Now.

- This is named after your grandmother, so I'm sure you add it at your grandmother.

- Yeah.

- Vacherin Jeannette.

And you see the floating island in there, I'll put a few almond maybe on top like this.

Maybe I shouldn't have put any on top, the caramel is more beautiful.

That's a nice classic dessert.

So here is that cake, you know, finished and hard frozen.

Well, slightly defrosted now.

And this is great, you freeze it and you put it in the refrigerator to let it defrost a little bit.

And I'm gonna show you how I made that cake.

- Sounds good.

- Now to make the vacherin Jeannette, which is going to be flavored with orange rind and Grand Marnier, we start by doing a meringue.

And I have six egg white here, which is close to a cup of egg white.

And that, we're gonna start beating that about five, six minutes.

I'm gonna put the sugar now.

And then, we can put our meringue right in there.

We want to do two strip of meringue here.

You wanna fold that like an accordion, put in the corner of your hand, and drive with that hand.

So what I have here is just a straight little square of meringue or maybe a bit wider than that, a bit wider than that, okay?

Another one here.

This is going to be a sandwich of meringue.

If you have some extra meringue, we can always have a couple of extra meringue here.

The rest of it we put in the center.

Six egg whites should give you a good six cup of meringue.

Now it's very good to use the type of recess spatula that I have here.

So you can really spread it out into a nice rectangle with approximately the same thickness, you see?

This has now to go into the oven about 200 degree, and it will dry and cook for two, three hours.

When it comes out of the oven, your meringue should be dry.

Even if it's light yellow like that, it should be brittle.

That's a nice meringue.

So with this, we're going to fill that up with whipped cream.

It's almost like a frozen souffle, you know?

And for that and that this here, 10, 12, I have a cup of heavy cream, about a third of a cup of sugar.

And we have to beat that until it's nice and fluffy.

Okay, I think it's about ready now.

If we're going to flavor it with orange rind, just the rind of orange and a little bit of Grand Marnier, which is a brandy flavored with orange.

You wanna stir that in, nicely.

One of the best thing to do is to get a piece of paper about that size so you can put your meringue on top of it, you know?

Even if it breaks, well, that just broke, that one doesn't really matter.

This is nice to have a serrated edge knife to cut that.

Don't worry about the trimming because we're going to use it in the cake.

So we put cream on top of this.

You know, the nice part of that is that the meringue inside is going to get soft even in the freezer.

A bit of my meringue on top.

A bit more cream there.

And now, you spread this out.

Put the other layer on top, just press it into it.

Okay, now we have to put cream around, all around and on this side to make a flat cake.

Yeah, spread that on top.

That's why it's nice to have a piece of cardboard.

It should give you about the right side for this.

Now the fun part of it, you wanna continue decorating it with this.

Remember all of that will be frozen, bit of a decoration here.

You wanna do it on the side also.

And we can, sometime, I put all different type of candied, this is actually a rose petal.

You could use it a bit of a decoration on top.

This makes it very festive, you know?

And basically this is it.

You have to put that in the freezer.

Now you put it this way, you don't cover it.

And after two, three hours, it gets hard.

Then you put a piece of plastic wrap around so it doesn't pick up any taste.

And you can keep it frozen for a month or so, you know, nicely packed at that point.

But if you eat frozen a long time, you should defrost it in the refrigerator about half an hour before you slice it.

And on this one, Titine, we can put, if you want, a few of those fruit here.

But as I say, you put them after it's been frozen.

Because if you put them at the beginning, then of course it freeze, you know, the fruit.

So you know the advantage of doing that cake?

You can do that cake weeks ahead because you do the cake, you freeze it, you know?

And then the day after you do another cake, you freeze it, and then you wrap it, and you have enough for 12, 15 people here.

- Yeah.

- So after you've done four, five cake, you have a party of a hundred people or so, all those cake already.

Okay.

- [Claudine] Now those are egg whites.

- Yeah, I have eight egg whites here, Titine, eight egg whites.

And what we have a cup of sugar here to do our base meringue here.

And into this, we're gonna have four egg yolk.

Give me a little bit of vanilla there.

Okay, about a good, yeah, that's good.

- Okay.

- We have four egg yolk and we're gonna mix that into a meringue mixture.

And then gently there like this, you can hold the bowl for me, thank you.

- Now this is what's called folding.

- That's folding, yes.

Okay, see this is a classic Baked Alaska but done in a much more delicate way.

Usually, the Baked Alaska, they do a thick meringue on top.

And this is egg white with a bit of the egg yolk in it and the vanilla, so with much more flavor.

We gotta cut the cake.

I have a cake here.

And that's going to be the base.

- [Claudine] What kind of cake is that?

- [Jacques] This is a mousseline cake, so called.

You see the way I turn my knife?

- [Claudine] And you turn the cake.

- And I turn the cake so that you end up, you know, at that.

You understand what I'm saying?

- Yeah.

- You start here, you know, and then you turn and start here, you turn, you keep turning your cake until you are in the first cut, and then you cut the center.

Okay, so I'm gonna put that in the bottom cake like that.

Now I need the ice cream.

- Ice cream.

- Little bit of cognac.

That's good, so here it is.

- Now this is not gonna melt?

- Well, we're gonna put it in the oven.

- See, that I don't get.

- But it's going to be covered.

So it's going to, you put about a quarter of ice cream you serve, have that for eight, 10 people.

And then I put some cake on top of it here, you see?

- Oh, so this sort of acts like insulation?

- Yes, it does act like insulation.

That should be enough.

I mean, you can put as much cake as you want, but now here is my cognac or Grand Marnier or bourbon or whatever.

Or no alcohol, if you don't wanna put any alcohol, you can put a bit of a syrup here, sugar, water, bit of lemon juice, whatever, to flavor, and then do it with that.

Now we're gonna cover it with that.

Well, we are going to need the a pastry bag.

Put that in a pastry bag.

But first, I have to arrange that around.

- You want this in a pastry bag?

- Yeah, if you get to the pastry bag with a fluted tip, because you wanna cover, you know, your meringue there.

This is the type of dessert though, you have to be absolutely ready here.

Put that in there, you see?

That's it, will that help you?

You know if you are by yourself.

Okay, turn now.

- Oh okay.

- I think it looks perfect.

- I have to use all the stuff I have in my bag.

- Oh.

- Well, you know what I need you to do?

- You need me to - I forget, you need - make a receptacle thing.

- to do a receptacle.

I mean you can serve that this way.

But we call that a volcano, like a volcano surprise.

So we want the flame coming out of the volcano.

To have the flame coming at the volcano, we need to put that in some type of receptacle here.

You can use the shell of an egg or Claudine is doing, what are you doing?

- [Claudine] Lemon, a half a lemon.

- Now what we have to do here, we put a little bit of powdered sugar.

We'll put some powdered sugar when it comes out of the oven also.

And we put that in there and up ready to go into the oven.

- Okay.

- Okay.

About 12 to 15 minutes, about 400 degree.

And then, you serve it right away.

- Okay.

- Okay, let me put a bit of powdered sugar on top of it here.

The snow is falling, the cognac is getting there.

- It's pouring.

- You don't have to put all of it.

- No, you ready?

- Yeah.

- It looks very hot.

- Yeah.

It's flambeing there.

- Okay.

- All right.

- Well, we'll serve it this way.

- Oh, wow.

- Isn't that beautiful?

- That is perfect.

Hmm, it's cold.

- It is cold, cold and hot.

This is what it is, souffles surprise, it's cold and hot.

What are we going to drink with that today?

- We have some beautiful stuff.

We're actually gonna drink a late harvest Chardonnay, but I also found a couple of other wines that I think would be fun.

They're all dessert wines.

They've all gone through noble rot.

- Oh.

- They've all been botrytized.

This one is from Banyul, and this is Beaumes-de-Venise, a Muscat - Banyul, where I went in vacation with your mother.

- Right, that's what I thought.

- Yes, near Spain in the coast of France.

- Very bitter, it's lovely.

- So tell them a little bit what we have here.

- Ah, we have the floating island.

- Floating island, yes.

- Yes, this is my grandmother's cake, I'm very excited about that.

- That's beautiful, yeah.

- It is really beautiful.

And I can make this what?

Six, eight, 10 months in advance?

- Yeah, couple of years until you get married.

We have all of that can be done ahead, except of course this, which is like a souffle.

- Yes.

- Out of the oven.

Ice cream and the meringue mixture on top.

And that another time of the same mixture, remember?

Than that one.

- Yes.

So this is all the same.

- With the mocha buttercream.

- So here's to Jennifer.

All the best to her.

- Here's to Jennifer - Yes.

- So.

- Happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.