Food design studio Bompas & Parr has created an incredibly lightweight edible meringue using a process originally developed to manufacture the lightest solid material ever made.
The multidisciplinary London-based studio headed by Sam Bompas and Harry Parr worked with materials experts at the Aerogelex laboratory in Hamburg to translate the properties of the world's lightest solid into an edible dessert.

As well as being incredibly lightweight, aerogels are exceptional insulators and are used in contexts ranging from cladding pipes to capturing cosmic dust.
Bompas & Parr adapted the process used to create aerogels in order to produce a meringue that it described as "a taste of the sky".

Aerogels can be made from a variety of materials, but for this project the studio focused on the globular proteins found in egg whites, which are called albuminoids. The process used to create the meringue begins with a hydrogel of egg white, which is cast in a mould before being submerged in a bath of calcium chloride and water.

The designers will unveil the meringues and offer the first opportunity to taste them at the King Abdulaziz Centre for World Culture (Ithra) in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia during Ithra's Creativity Season, Tanween, from 10 to 26 October 2019.
Bompas & Parr is known for its experimental approach to working with food, which regularly crosses over into the worlds of architecture and immersive experiences.
Its previous projects have included the creati...