Meringues

When I discovered Pinterest (Thanks, Sandi!), I kept seeing all of these lovely meringues. I have chickens, and an abundance of eggs, so thought I'd give a recipe a try. The first batch wasn't perfect, neither was the second...but I persevered! They all tasted good, but I wanted them prettier and better. My family laughed at me as I proceeded to make these tasty little puffs about every other day for a week.

After searching through about a dozen recipes, I think this is the best tweak that I can come up with. Martha Stewart's magazine had orange and lemon ones on the cover recently. She's probably to blame for the millions of meringues that have been consumed in the last couple months!

While they look hard, it's actually pretty easy. Although if it is humid on the day you make them, and you let them sit out, they will sweat...and won't be quite as crunchy. Not that it would stop me from eating one or three...lol

Meringues

4 large egg whites, room temperature

1 cup sugar (I pulse this in the food processor to make it superfine)

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp vanilla

 

 

 Heat oven to 175

On low, beat egg whites until frothy

Add salt and cream of tartar

Beat on medium until it stiffens

Beat on high, adding sugar one tablespoon at a time. Fully beat the sugar in each time

Once the mixture is glossy and stiff, beat the vanilla (or other flavoring) in quickly

Place mixture in piping bag and pipe onto parchment covered cookie sheets

 

This recipe fills two large cookie sheets

Place both sheets in the oven

Bake for an hour then turn oven off, crack the door and leave until fully cooled

We have a convection oven, so I don’t crack the door. The fan tends to blow for quite a while after I turn the oven off. I just leave them in there until they are cool. Store in an air tight container. We just leave the pans in the oven and eat them until they are gone...about four at a time! Which is why I make them SMALL.

Options:

You can add additional flavorings: mint, 1 tablespoon grated lemon or orange zest, rum, only limited to your imagination. You can also put color gel in the bag to make it even prettier.

We also add about a cup of mini chocolate chips to half the recipe. Some in the family like it, some don’t. If you are piping through a tip, you'll need the LARGE size tip to allow the chips to flow through.

 

If you don't have piping tips, couplers and bags, you can always just put the mixture into a zip-lock bag, cut a corner off (SMALL!) and pipe it out that way. That's what I did the first couple times. But then had to buy a big star tip, to make them prettier!