Meringue Cookies

These may be the best cookies ever for me. They are light, airy, and SO easy to make. If you want to impress someone and bake him or her cookies, definitely make meringue cookies.

All you need to do is whip up egg whites with a bit of cream of tartar and powdered sugar until stiffed. That's it! Then you can add any flavoring you want. Here's a recipe that tells you about the basic technique of making meringue cookies. Most recipes call for 1/4 cup of sugar for each egg white, but I find that to be a bit too sweet. Maybe it's just with the additional chocolate chips that I mixed in. Experiment and see what you like.

Above is a green tea meringue cookies that I made, though you can't really see the green matcha tint. A few of them I topped with sesame seeds and nuts, and some I topped with raspberry jam. The jam was a bad idea! It deflated the meringues as it melted down into a puddle. :( See why the cookies are flat?!

Below is my meringue with chocolate chips and nuts. These were very good, my favorite out of the two. My nephew loved both and asked for more the next day, even though I hated the green tea version. ^_^ I just mixed chopped chocolate chips and nuts into the meringue after it's been whipped up. My most important tip for you is not to pipe out the meringues with the nuts. The nuts got stuck in the nozzle and it was a pain in the ass to take out. :( It will be much easier and faster if you scoop out the meringue and put dollops of it on the baking tray (non-stick Reynolds). Topped with some more chocolates and nuts. Yay- a free form look!

There are two ways of baking meringue cookies if you search around on the net. One is baking them at a high temperature for a short time, and the other is baking for a long time at a low temperature. I prefer baking them at 225F for about 1 3/4 hrs- 2 hrs. You don't have to worry about them burning! The cookies will be dry, crispy and airy. This is a good cookie to make to warm up your kitchen on a cold day.