Meringues

Meringues are fluffy, sweet and light. My best description: biting into a meringue is like biting into a crispy cloud.

The ingredients are few and the recipe is easy.

Ingredients:
3 Egg Whites
1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar
3/4 cups Powdered Sugar
1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract

Beat the egg whites until they are frothy and thick. At this point, you fold in the cream of tartar. The purpose of the cream of tartar is to maintain the thick consistency of the thick, frothy egg whites, otherwise it lose its Consistency and become liquidy again. Continue to beat the eggs until they form solid peaks that hold. Slowly mix in the sugar and lastly add in the vanilla extract. This is also the step where if you desire to change the colour of your meringues, you may. My meringues are blue; I added about 4 drops of food colouring to reach the desired shade.

I used a cake decorating tube to make the little swirly shapes you can see in the photos above. The cookie sheet was lined with wax paper (a cheaper alternative to the recommended parchment paper). Because these were cooked only at approximately 150º F, the wax paper did not melt. With higher temperatures, I would not recommend using wax paper - it becomes a sticky mess.

There wasn't a set time in which I let the meringues cook. My way of checking on them was to open the oven every 20 minutes or so and touch them. Once they feel solid, dry and flaky, they are done. Let them cool before popping them off the sheet. Since the wax paper stick a bit to the bottoms, I used a metal spatula to pop each one up. They came out better than I expected!