Meringues

My first encounter with meringues was at my aunt's house, where she had purchased some Trader Joe's meringues for one of my families visits.  We went through the entire tub in no time.  They are so tasty.  Meringues are one of these things that seem so much more fancy than they are.  These meringues have three ingredients: egg whites, sugar and vanilla. 

To be honest, this recipe is really easy if you have a mixer.  If you don't, you'll be doing a lot of whisking.  But with my lovely kitchenaide, the meringues were a snap.  You do have to be careful to make sure your bowl and beaters are clean and dry.  Then use it to whisk the egg whites like crazy.  

Once the eggs start to get thicker and fluffy, but are still soft, add the sugar slowly and then the vanilla and then beat them some more, until they are white and stiff.  Your mixer is doing all the work here, you have to do almost nothing.  The lack of effort required in making these cookies is a serious risk to any diet.

You can just drop dollops of the meringue onto a cookie sheet, but I like to be fancy and use gadgets so I filled up my pastry bag and used it to pipe pretty little mounds.

I may have filled it a little full as it started squishing out the top.But I managed to get them all piped out, despite the slight mess.  Use parchment paper so you can get the meringues off without breaking them.  Parchment paper is totally awesome for the removal of all baked goods from pans.

The only downside to meringues is they need a long time at a low temperature to get dried out so they are light and crisp.  Some recipes call for an hour, so recipes have you turn the oven off and leave them in there overnight.  So plan to be cooking them for a while, but it doesn't require any effort from you, so I still say they're super easy.

Meringues

3 egg whites

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1. Beat egg whites until soft and fluffy.

2. Add sugar slowly while beating.

3. Add vanilla slowly and continue beating until egg whites form stiff peaks and are glossy white.

4. Cover baking sheet with parchment paper and use a pastry bag to pipe or a spoon to scope meringues onto it.

5. Bake in a 200 degree oven for 1 hour. Turn off oven and let meringues dry in over for another 1 hour.

6. Remove from oven, let cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

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