Meringue cookies are relatively easy to make. Meringues are dessert treats made from stiffly beaten eggwhites.

Ingredients and Equipment:
cookie sheet
plastic storage bag, or icing bag with decorative tip
butter or margarine
electric mixer
3 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
cocoa powder (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 275 F. Grease a cookie sheet with butter or margarine.

2. Using an electric mixer, beat the eggwhites until they look foamy. Add cream of tartar, and keep beating the eggwhites until they are firm. Don't beat the crap out of the eggwhites or it will become liquid.

3. Keep beating, and slowly add sugar, then vanilla. The meringue is ready when it looks glossy and forms stiff peaks (especially when you remove the mixer).

4. Either: snip the bottom corner of a plastic storage bag diagonally, about an inch or less wide; or use an icing bag. Carefully scoop meringue into the bag.

5. Squeeze bag and let meringue come out onto a cookie sheet in desired size and shape.

6. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes until the cookies are hard and slightly browned.

Food coloring can be added in step 2.

Meringue is a component of sweet deserts. It’s made from baked foamed-egg white. Meringue is often an ingredient in trifle, it also forms the base of a pavlova and the topping of that 70’s favourite, the lemon merangue pie.

Choose fresh cold eggs. Separate out and discard the yolks. Empty the egg-white into a perfectly clean metal mixing bowl.

Beat or Fold the Egg-whites until they become a stiff foam. Many chefs still do this by hand because the rotary action of most mixing machines can destroy the unstable foam. When the foam is stiff enough to form pointed peaks on it’s surface, you can slowly fold in the sugar or any flavourings / colourings that are required. This is a tricky process as most impurities have a tendency to weaken the foam.

The foam should be placed on rice-paper and cooked at a medium heat in a fan assisted oven. If made perfectly, it should be snow white, and soft on the inside. Even expert chefs find this difficult. When home-made, it will normally have creamy – brown discolorations because most ovens cant cook them evenly enough.

Commercially made merangue normally looks perfect, but has a substance something like sweet chalk. It’s only nice in small quantities, because it’s hard and brittle all the way through.

Me`ringue" (F. ?; E. ?), n. [F.]

A delicate pastry made of powdered sugar and the whites of eggs whipped up, -- with jam or cream added.

 

© Webster 1913.

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