Meringue Cookies Recipe

Meringue cookies look like the most beautiful, perfect, impossible object, but they're so easy to make, super crisp and light as air. They literally float into your mouth and just dissolve right away. You're gonna love this recipe. Hey, you're watching Preppy Kitchen where I, John Kanell, teach you how to make delicious homemade dishes to share with your family and friends. These meringue cookies willy, willy. These meringue cookies whip up in a snap. So let's get started. I have a big group of friends coming over for an afternoon tea and these will be like the star of that tiered stand of desserts and sandwiches. They're gonna look so amazing and I can't wait. First off, make sure your bowl is clean, clean as a whistle. If there's any fat here or here, you're not gonna have the very best meringue. You'll have meringue still, but it won't be as good as it could be. So just wipe it down with like a little bit of vinegar, lemon juice, let it dry and you're good to go. Clean. Now we're gonna separate four room temperature egg white. Doing this the right way and separating the yolks with my clean hands. You can use the shell, you can use a gadget, whatever you like. Your hands are the softest and least likely to break the yolk. And if you're wondering, you can click up here for my pastry cream video. Yolks are amazing to make custard with. So try that out. You're supposed to dump the whites in as you go. That's the whole point. And we're doing this so if a yolk breaks or if there's like a funky egg in here, it's not gonna ruin the whole batch. Three and four. Shells away. Wash your hands. Be right back. To my egg whites I'm adding a pinch of salt and one quarter teaspoon cream of tartar. Cream of tartar is a byproduct of winemaking and it's an acid. It's nice because it's totally dry, it's a powder and it'll help stabilize your egg whites. If you don't have it or you just don't wanna get it, go ahead and use like a quarter teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice. It'll give you roughly the same results although you are adding a liquid into the egg whites. Not quite the same but similar. Can you use granulated sugar? Yes, I have done it before. I'll do it again. But the best thing to use is super fine sugar. Look at this. It's like a cross between powdered sugar and regular granulated sugar. It's just very fine grains which will dissolve into your meringue nicely. Okay, let's give them a froth. Start on low, work your way up to high. The egg whites are starting to froth up and now we're gonna add the sugar in but here's the deal. You can't just dump it in. You wanna add it in slowly, so slowly, painfully slowly. If you're making a regular French meringue, which this is, you can get a wonderful thick marshmallow-y texture. Marshmallows. You can get a wonderful thick marshmallow-y texture but only if you add the sugar in really slowly. I'm gonna do it a tablespoon at a time and just let it cascade in. Pretend you have all the time in the world. Taking my time. If you just dump the sugar in, you're not gonna get that thick texture. It's never gonna have the beautiful pipe-ability. It will never reach its full potential. You can see how fine the sugar is because it's almost like blowing away with the movement of the whisk. Do you see how pretty the meringue is already? It's getting really nice. Last little bit. Look at this meringue. Beautiful, stiff peak. That's exactly what you want. So we can stop right now. I might just take a look at the bottom of the bowl, the whisk. Okay, so I'm gonna take a little bit in my fingers, which are clean. Gonna let this run a bit longer because I can still feel some of the sugar that's not dissolved yet. I want the sugar to be almost completely dissolved in that meringue. While that's happening, I'm gonna add a teaspoon of vanilla in. It's five ml. And by the way, the vanilla is gonna darken the meringue just a little bit. So if that bothers you, you can use almond extract or leave it plain, but you wanna have some flavoring. So if this is a holiday meringue cookie, it could be peppermint oil. It's also clear. Okay, that's much better. Just a little bit longer. Take a look. That's nice. Do you see this? It looks like a snail or a slug. That is a pretty stiff meringue if it can do this. So right now the meringue is ready as far as the stiffness goes, but it has little tiny bits of sugar in there. And if you bake them with the sugar undissolved, it'll have like little puck marks on the surface. It'll still taste fine, but you want it to be like nice, perfect looking cookies. It's part of the whole pleasure of them is how beautiful they are. It's almost ready. While that's finishing up, I'm gonna get my piping bag ready. So a large piping bag. Here I have an 846 tip, which is a large closed star. The ends turn back in, so it gives you a nice kind of dramatic meringue. I'm doing two batches. One is gonna be, you know, uncolored. The other one's gonna be soft pink. The soft pink one is gonna have an 869 tip, one of my favorites, a large open star. So for the open star, you can see it just kind of points out, doesn't curve in. Okay, my piping bags are ready. I think this should be ready. Yeah, if you look closely, I want you to see this, come here. First of all, look at this. That is a stiff meringue. Look at this. It's like, very surprised. And if you look at the texture, you can even see it right here. It is very glossy, very smooth. So with a French meringue, thing you have to watch out for is the undissolved sugar. If you were making an Italian meringue or a Swiss meringue, then the sugar's already pre-dissolved either by hook or by crook. There's two different ways. This is ready for the piping bag. I'm just gonna test it. Nice and smooth, no grit. We're gonna pipe these onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, and I'm just gonna take a dollop from my whisk in the corners, and it'll be the glue, the glue to keep this family together. Just kidding. It's the glue to keep the parchment paper down. You do a similar thing when you make macaron. You can click up here for that recipe. It's delicious. So I'm gonna make one batch that's white and one batch that's soft pink, and try and eliminate any big air bubbles that happen because those will mess up your piping. Nobody wants that. If you wanna take a little bit of time to practice, just use the back or the side of your spatula and make a pattern up, see how you like it. It could be anything you want. You could even just spoon it on, and it'd be totally messy. But I think I'm gonna do simple little stars. So pretty. I love the definition you get for a properly made meringue. These are not gonna spread out in the oven, but they will want a little bit of air to circulate around them, so don't pipe them too close. And the funny thing is, with a French meringue, which is kind of, it's actually the easiest meringue to make, people think you can't get a meringue that's this glossy, this high definition, because if you dump the sugar in, the meringue is droopy. It doesn't have that nice, stiff peak. So the only thing you have to do is maybe try and get them to be roughly the same size. The one thing I will say is that you do wanna do this quickly. Don't go do some dishes or run an errand because the meringue will lose consistency. The very end of the piping bag, but that's okay. That'll be my snacking meringue. That's all done. We're gonna do the soft pink ones now, and you can see what the difference is with the 869 tip. I'm using a soft pink gel food coloring. That's your best bet for any kind of food coloring, to be honest. Taking a little bit with a skewer. I'm just going to mix it in like that. Then, I'm gonna use the whisk and just mix it in by hand. Look at that. Beautiful color. Okay, now I'm gonna fill up this 869 tipped bag. Once again, try to avoid air bubbles. What's this? A giant air bubble. Are you kidding me? Got it. That's ready. So once again, dollop, dollop, dollop. Now, we're gonna pipe beautiful little pink kisses. This is the last of my parchment paper that I got when I was in Los Angeles, and it's come over here a little bit wrinkled. It's time to buy some new. Okay. So I'm squeezing just maybe half an inch above the surface and then lifting up. I'm not squeezing and lifting. Squeeze, lift up. These are the perfect cookie for an afternoon tea. They're very elegant or, I don't know, they look so fancy to me even though there's just a few ingredients and so simple. It's like a little drop of springtime. Into the oven, center rack, 200 degrees for an hour. Then, leave the oven closed. Don't even open it for an additional hour to two hour to overnight, especially if it's humid and like bleh outside. You really wanna dry them out totally. You're just like letting the moisture kind of like dehumidify out of there. I hope you get to make this recipe, and if you like it, check out my afternoon tea sandwiches. They are so delicious and the perfect accompaniment. You're gonna treat yourself and really love it. If you wanna get creative, you can drizzle some chocolate on top, dip them in chocolate. The world is your oyster. They could be anything you want, and these are all gonna go on that tray, but the ugly one that was the last of the piping bag is for me. So crunchy, it just melts in your mouth. It's like an amazing cookie. If you like my videos, hit that like button and subscribe, and I'll see you in the next video.