Week 10 of 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies: Holiday Meringues

Its December, can you believe that? I’m so happy. This is my favorite month of the year, and we get to celebrate my favorite holiday – Christmas. And speaking of favorites, today I stumbled on something that flew right onto my list of favorites – Meringues. I can’t believe I hadn’t made this before. Actually, I did try it out before, but they turned out flat and stuck to the baking paper and so it ended up in the trash, but don’t tell anyone that. **wink wink** Anyway, this was a few years ago and I never considered making meringues again. However, in the last few weeks, I’ve been toying with the idea of making a Pavlova. According to me, it falls in the same category as the meringues, so I was a little apprehensive and it has been on hold since. For some reason, I felt brave this morning and decided that it was time to give meringues another shot. I knew that if I couldn’t make meringues, making a pavlova would be quite questionable.

This attempt was better than the previous, but I still have some kinks to work out. Maybe some of you can help me understand what I can do differently the next time. Oh yes, I’m going to make these again, because even though they weren’t visually very appealing, I loved the taste and texture. It was light and airy, crisp on the outside and a little chewy on the inside. They just melt  in you mouth. I know for a fact that the next time, I will need to add more color and flavor, because what I used this time wasn’t nearly enough. Some of the meringues cracked a little. Can anyone tell me how this can be avoided? I’d love to hear from you. I tried the kisses and wreaths and I wanted to create something that looked like Christmas trees, those didn’t turn out too well, some cracked and some tilted. I used inspiration from here, here and here.  I couldn’t settle on any one so here’s what I did.

Holiday Meringues

2 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
A pinch of cream of tartar
Green food coloring
Peppermint extract
Sprinkles, or sanding sugar to decorate

Preheat the oven to 160°C.

Whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar together till it gets light and foamy. Gradually add the sugar and keep whisking till it reaches a stiff peak consistency.

Add food coloring and flavor extracts of your choice. I used green food color and peppermint extract and mix well. Prepare a piping bag and use a star shaped icing tip and pipe out the meringues onto some lightly greased baking paper. Bake at 160°C for about 20 minutes and then at 140°C for another 20 minutes.

Cool and decorate as desired. I used a mix of red sanding sugar and some crumbled cinnamon jelly beans.

I can’t wait to try this again and hopefully get visually better results.

Go ahead and take a peek at what the other wonderfully talented folks have made this week.

Week 10 Twelve Weeks of Christmas:

15 thoughts on “Week 10 of 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies: Holiday Meringues

  1. Wow, your meringues look awesome. I especially love that wreath, so pretty. I'll definitely have to try making peppermint flavored meringues too.

  2. Those came out perfectly! I remember trying to make meringues one year and they came out tasting good, but too chewy. I oughta give these a try!

  3. i love playing around with meringue batter! U can practically coax them to be any shape or colour u want them to be! Your cookies look great! The sprinkles are so festive!

  4. All my pavlovas have been flops. I haven't attempted it for years though.
    I think to avoid cracking you have to make sure they cool down SLOWLY. That's what I read anyway as I've been doing research on how to make a successful pavlova before I try making it again (I want to make one for Christmas!)

  5. I've made meringues and pavolas (check out my old post) many times, my oven was between 200º and 225º. Yours are so cute, love the sprinkles too.
    mickey

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