I was baking so much in the run-up to the holidays in a well-meaning 
attempt to post as many pre-Christmas items as I could. It’s the writing where I have a bottleneck so while I have photos and recipes galore, I just can’t seem to find enough time to sit down and write. One of the nagging issues I had as I made ensaimada after ensaimada with a 30+ egg yolk recipe each time was what to do with all of the egg whites! So today is egg white day; first, the sans rival post earlier and now Paciencia…a great, relatively easy user-upper of excess egg whites. To make, beat 8 egg whites until stiff with the whisk attachment on your mixer. Add 2 cups of caster (or white) sugar and continue to beat until glossy. Sift 1 cup all purpose flour and ½ teaspoon of baking powder together and fold this into the egg whites carefully. Add some grated rind of lemon or some lemon/vanilla extract.
Drop by the teaspoonful onto greased cookie 
sheet and bake at 350 degrees F until light brown. I got this recipe from Recipes of the Philippines by Enriqueta David-Perez. The key is not to make the meringues too big unless you intentionally want them crisper on the outside and chewy on the inside. This does not get as rock hard as the slow cooked white meringue but it is appealing in its own way. I wouldn’t make this unless I had excess egg whites from another recipe but other folks seemed to like it… It seems to be a dessert that is misnamed as it took very little effort and patience to make this…if anything should have patience in the title it was the sans rival I wrote about earlier!
10 Responses
David-Perez’ recipe is a bible. We also have one in the house.
Uhm, MM, I thought Pacencia is a biscuit. This is a meringue (meh-reng-ge to us Pinoys) isn’t it? Ok, I’ll sift through David-Perez’ tome again tonight.
Oscar, you got me if this is a biscuit…these came out like the photo in the book more or less… I agree we normally call something like this meringue but these weren’t strictly crisp…
MM: Who eats all the food you make? I have a huge family, but I don’t think even they could manage the volume of food you prepare. =)
When I bake at the beach (where MY kitchen with MY equipment is)I feed most of the nearby barangay… they think there is this nutty middle-aged guy with a cooking disorder but who are they to complain with French butter ensaimada experiments coming out fast and furious…heeheehee.
MM, can you please tell me what barangay that is and I will gladly relocate there. Better yet, maybe your whole horde of fans can set up a Barangay Market Manila beside your rest house. :)
The paciencia biscuit that I know looks like a button shaped broas with a sifted confectioner’s sugar topping that bakes
into a crisp shiny crust.
Hmmmm, this looks easy to do. I will try this one for sure and thanks for sharing again Mr. Marketman.
BTW, is the ensaimada recipe published here somewhere? Or is it something so special that it’s on its way to the patent office? :)
hi MM, how about a Pavlova for all those egg whites? topping it with kiwi fruits and strawberries make for a very festive red/green combination in time for the season :)
Rina, pavlova is a good idea but I am not too keen on tons of meringue…spent too much time working in Australia, maybe… RobKSA ensaimada recipe coming up soon…
am going to make small batches of meringue maybe fri night but I will add butter choc to have a marble effect.
As soon am done reading this am off to the market to get more eggs.
KALA XHRISTOUGENNA….
Wow, MM, I didn’t realize that it’s that easy to make Paciencia, thank’s for sharing. Yes, I am often thinking how you can manage doing all these cooking and experimenting with recipes and home/food decorating and at the same time write with all enthusiasm and humor all of these so as to share with us. You are one gifted person and a very generous one too. Thanks MM