Leche merengada
A Spanish summer dessert, sold in the ice-cream parlours of Valencia and Madrid alongside horchata. It is milk infused with cinnamon and lemon peel, combined with meringue and frozen to a half-liquid, snowy texture. It is not an ice to slice: the secret is breaking up the crystals with a fork every 40 minutes — without it the milk sets into a hard block of ice.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Infusing the milk 20 min
- Cooling 30 min
- Chilling 120 min
- Meringue 10 min
- Freezing and stirring 180 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneInfuse the milk with cinnamon and peel
Bring the milk to a boil with the sugar, cinnamon sticks and lemon peel without its white pith, lower the heat and hold 10 minutes just below simmering. The white pith is bitter and passes into the milk.
Ingredients: 1000 ml milk · 100 ml whipping cream (30%) · 120 g sugar · 2 pcs cinnamon · 1 pcs lemon
Yellow peel only — the pith turns the milk bitter.Leave the aromatics in to cool
Take off the heat and leave the cinnamon and peel in the milk until cold. The aroma keeps moving as it cools — removed at once they leave only a faint note. To speed up the cooling, stand the pan in a bowl of cold water: about 30 minutes.
Ingredients: 1000 ml milk · 100 ml whipping cream (30%) · 120 g sugar · 2 pcs cinnamon · 1 pcs lemon
Strain and chill two hours
Strain, add the cream and chill at least 2 hours. The milk must be ice cold before it meets the meringue, since warm it dissolves it in seconds.
Ingredients: 1000 ml milk · 100 ml whipping cream (30%) · 120 g sugar · 2 pcs cinnamon · 1 pcs lemon
Whisk a soft meringue
Whisk the whites with a pinch of salt, adding the sugar, to soft peaks that curl over. A stiff meringue will not combine with the milk and floats in it as flecks.
Ingredients: 3 pcs egg whites · 60 g sugar · 1 pinch salt
Fold the meringue into the cold milk
Fold the meringue into the milk with a whisk, gently, in two additions. The mixture will be foamy and slightly separated — correct; freezing and stirring will even it out.
Ingredients: 3 pcs egg whites · 60 g sugar · 1 pinch salt
Gently, in two additions — foam is a good sign.Freeze in a shallow metal tray
Pour into a shallow metal tray and put it in the freezer. Metal and a shallow depth speed the freezing; in a deep tub the centre stays liquid while the edges freeze solid.
Ingredients: 1000 ml milk · 100 ml whipping cream (30%) · 120 g sugar · 2 pcs cinnamon · 1 pcs lemon
Break the crystals every 40 minutes
Every 40 minutes take out the tray and rake the mixture with a fork, scraping the frozen edges into the middle. Repeat 4 times; in total the freezing takes about 3 hours. This is what gives the texture of wet snow instead of hard ice.
Ingredients: 1000 ml milk · 100 ml whipping cream (30%) · 120 g sugar · 2 pcs cinnamon · 1 pcs lemon
A fork every forty minutes — hence the snowy texture.Serve half-frozen with cinnamon
Serve when it is thick and snowy but still scoopable with a spoon, dusted with cinnamon. If it has frozen too hard, leave it 15 minutes in the fridge and rake it again.
Ingredients: 1 tsp ground cinnamon
Before you start
With coffee as blanco y negro
In Valencia leche merengada is also served with iced coffee granita (granizado de café) — the combination is called blanco y negro, white and black. Bitter coffee and sweet cinnamon milk are a perfect match in the heat.
Raw whites — fresh only
The meringue here is never baked, so the whites must be very fresh. For small children, pregnant women, older people and anyone with a weakened immune system, make it only with pasteurised whites from a carton or as an Italian meringue, pouring hot sugar syrup (118 °C) into the whites as they whisk.
A week in the freezer
It keeps a week in the freezer but hardens into a block. Before serving move it to the fridge for half an hour and rake it with a fork, and it returns to snow.
