Meringue Kisses

In this instructable, I will detail the art of the meringue kiss. This is a simple recipe, inexpensive to make, and yields a light, crispy cookie that won't make you feel guilty. The most important thing you will need is time, as these cookies will need to bake for three hours. If you expect to make them very pretty, you will also need far more patience and skill than I will demonstrate here.

I neglected to take a picture of the finished process, as I was too busy scalding the roof of my mouth eating hot cookies. I will attempt to address this failure in the near future.

Step 1 Assemble your tools and ingredients

Here is what you need:

Ingredients
3 room temperature egg whites (see step 2)
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon imitation almond extract

Tools
Standard hand mixer
Pastry bag
star tip ( I couldn't find my star tip, so I used some funky grass tip thing. This is where you will make a decision as to how purty you want your cookies to look).
Parchment

Comments

[tgalloway1]

We make these for Halloween and call them "Ghost Poop." I've always used vanilla instead of almond, but that sounds yummy, too.

[finfan7]

I just made a set of these. definitely more there than i realised. made massive amount of them. these things are great though. i switched the almond for vanilla. they all look great if a bit yellow. i made a krapload of different shapes: uzumaki, spring coils, wavelength diagrams, a random sigil i don't remember where its from, my name in Japanese, my first initial, a couple of slug things, and a classick poo shape. i didn't want to have to find and then clean an icing bag so I used a gallon zip bag with the corner chopped off. worked just like a flat tip. i may post some pictures later of the weirder ones. (if this reads a bit funny its cuz its ~1 and i was doing a bunch of random stuff today) a few will probably end up on my account at link

[xenobiologista]

If you live in a humid climate make sure you keep them in a totally airtight container or they'll be appallingly sticky in no time =D

[SSain]

I love these! I use vanilla extract in place of almond and add 2 tablespoons of cocoa for chocolate flavored ones. Also at I use peppermint in place of almond and use food coloring. I make these at Christmas for gifts.

[chuckr44]

I love these cookies. Should I use granulated or powdered sugar? It seems like the granulated would not dissolve in just egg whites.

[jerbtown]

I used regular granulated. Many recipes call for "superfine" sugar, or "castor sugar" which basically means superfine sugar. I hear you can put regular granulated in a blender to make it superfine too.

[CatMan]

you could, but it's not so good for the blade. i always have 2 blender jugs- 1 for doing all the regular stuff, 1 for crushing ice and doing stuff like makeing super fine sugar. BTW, i recall a baker's advice i once heard about meringue, he said the professional version is much whiter and brittle because they bake it at VERY low heat, all night (6 hours), using the oven at the hours they sleep. sounds good to me. it's drying foam, not baking it, after all. though there might be a point at the beginning when you have to raise the temp to 200 just to set the foam.

[Dirkus]

A variation on this is to form the meringue into two different shapes. One piece looks like the cap of a mushroom and the other looks like a stem. Once the meringue has been baked and cooled, use melted chocolate to "glue" the caps to the stems. For a little more decoration, sprinkle the caps with a little cocoa powder prior to baking. Magic candy mushrooms!

[jerbtown]

Hey, kick ass idea. Thanks!