Can you buy ready-made meringue nests in American supermarkets?

They are a thing that exists, but at least in my part of the country (Northeast), they are not readily available. My regular supermarket doesn't carry them, but I would imagine a high end/specialty one might.

I do know that the bakery in my parents neighborhood does sell them unfilled. Meringue powder is pretty common here too, if you don't want her to end up with a fridge full of egg yokes.

They are a specialty item, as CoffeeBeans said. One upscale grocery near me sells them, but they don't always have them in stock. AFAIK, none of the bakeries in my city sells meringues (and they are one of my husband's favorite desserts, so I have looked).

Los Pollos Hermanos said:

p.s. Would somewhere like Trader Joe's** (droooooooool...) stock something like meringue nests, for future reference?

** We NEED this place in the UK, even if there isn't one at Tahoe.

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I Trader Joe's, but no, the one by me does not stock the nests. It does stock meringues of the normal "kiss" variety though. I think they do stock the sponge cake shells by me though. (actually, so does the regular market.)

You can order them on Amazon.com. One day delivery too.

I'm somewhat foodie (although not much of a dessert guy) and I've never encountered them.

Trader Joe's is the type of place that would have them, and larger cities have all sorts of specialty ethnic bakeries. I would not be surprised to find a UK or Irish themed bakery selling them.

ETA: Carson City has a Trader Joe's, accoring to Google, which loves us and would never lie.

Custom order in the bakery for anywhere around me.

Jeff

I have once or twice seen meringue shells in a supermarket (CT), but not recently, and never consistently.

But if she wants to crush them, it's much easier to find meringue cookies (kisses) - they're widely available in supermarkets & Trader Joes, & come in flavors & colors as well as plain white.

Or she can get her meringues from Amazon. Handy if she's the kind of person who might keep meringues in the pantry just in case. (They have a VERY long shelf-life.) Not so good if it's a spur-of-the-moment thing.

Los Pollos Hermanos said:

Cheers for the info. I'll investigate the meringue powder option (which would only need a quick tweak to the dialogue) or whether there's a posh bakery in the area* that might stock the unfilled version.

* A partially-fictionalised version of South Lake Tahoe. Sod it, if there isn't one I'll make one up and call it Stateline Patisserie or something similar!

p.s. Would somewhere like Trader Joe's** (droooooooool...) stock something like meringue nests, for future reference?

** We NEED this place in the UK, even if there isn't one at Tahoe.

Click to expand...

I've never noticed them at our Trader Joes (I'm in Sacramento), but I've never looked for them either. TJs is somewhat intermittent with the desserts they carry, so I could see them having something like that occasionally but not all the time. I frequently purchase empty pastry shells (pepperidge farm) from our local Raley's grocer (I think they also have Raley's up in South Lake Tahoe), but I've never noticed meringue shells/nests. But I've never looked for them either, or really thought of them as something that might exist. My experience with meringue is limited to an occasional lemon meringue pie, made with real eggs, and with having (as someone else said) a ton of yolks to find use for after.

I'm surprised there's not a Trader Joe's in South Lake Tahoe, but store distributions are funny things sometimes. They do indeed have stores in Carson City and Reno. Carson City is a much easier drive from SLT.

I have never, ever seen those in any of the stores I shop in. But then, I'm from the South and buying a ready-made meringue would likely require me to turn in my Southern Girl membership card.

I'm in a major city and while I've seen them around, it'd def. a specialty item, not in most stores. I've also never seen them in a bakery. I recently saw a bakery selling like, nekkid pavlovas, but I've never seen meringue nests to fill at home at one.

The meringue cookies, as above, are *everyplace*, from regular market to gourmet to TJ's to the corner deli. Several varieties, flavours, brands.

Los Pollos Hermanos said:

I'm not surprised you can buy them on Amazon. I thought amazon.co.uk was good until I perused amazon.com -- there's some seriously good stuff on there (American bakeware and kitchen bits are so much better than ours).

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But Amazon.com also has Marmite, which argues against your claim of "seriously good stuff"

cornflake said:

The meringue cookies, as above, are *everyplace*, from regular market to gourmet to TJ's to the corner deli. Several varieties, flavours, brands.

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Yeah. I mean, there's no reason she can't buy them at Trader Joe's if she just happens to be there, but if she made a special trip to TJ just for that, it'd be sort of weird.

The kiss type of meringues are often available from regular grocery stores, not just Trader Joe. I've seen them at Job Lots stores and the Christmas Tree Shop also.

My mother says she think she's seen them at our local Wal*Mart. So if she knows what they are then we must have had them around here at some point in time. I personally haven't seen them, but then, I haven't gone looking for them either. We live in Western New York.

I've worked and shopped a lot of retail stores from Texas to Utah to Arizona to California and I've never seen a store carrying them.