There are two English recipe books that have a recipe for meringue , but it is called `` white biskit bread '' in the book of recipes started in 1604 by Lady Elinor Fettiplace , or called `` pets '' in the manuscript of collected recipes written by Lady Rachel Fane . Two considerably earlier seventeenth-century English manuscript books of recipes give instructions for confections that are recognizable as meringue , though called `` white biskit bread '' in the book of recipes started in 1604 by Lady Elinor Fettiplace ( c. 1570 - c. 1647 ) of Appleton in Berkshire ( now in Oxfordshire ) , or called `` pets '' in the manuscript of collected recipes written by Lady Rachel Fane ( 1612\/13 - 1680 ) , of Knole , Kent .