Meringue cookies are those light and fluffy, simple seeming cookies that we all love biting into. They can be found in tubs at our local grocery stores, but in my house they are made from scratch. Although these cookies seem so effortless, there are actually quite a few challenging techniques in making them. Part of the reason is because the batter is meringue, and meringue can be under whipped, over whipped, too stiff, or too soft, etc. After watching the inspiring and talented Martha Stewart making her wonderful striped meringues, i was intrigued and knew I needed to try the recipe out.
I was determined to create the perfect little stripes that Martha did on her cookies by painting food coloring on the inside of the bag before putting the meringue mixture into it. Martha said this was a difficult skill- great. If Martha Stewart said it was hard, then it was HARD. But, to my amazement, i painted some strange lines in the bag, ultra- carefully scooped in the meringue, and piped out the most delicately swirled meringue cookies I have ever seen! It was a success.
The only changes i made to the recipe were not using vanilla bean because really- I am not paying fifteen dollars for a tiny dried out bean that we can hardly taste. So i also wanted mine to be lemon meringue so i added in a 1/2 teaspoon of lemon extract to my meringue batter. it is important to make sure the extract is added in after the sugar has been melted into the eggs and the eggs are being beaten. It seems to work better than adding it to the hot mix. Another important tip for making this recipe is using extreme care when scooping the meringue into the intricately painted piping bag, as to not smear the lines and end up with all one color meringues. Her is the link to Martha's recipe that also includes a video:
http://www.marthastewart.com/899362/meringue-swirls
I was determined to create the perfect little stripes that Martha did on her cookies by painting food coloring on the inside of the bag before putting the meringue mixture into it. Martha said this was a difficult skill- great. If Martha Stewart said it was hard, then it was HARD. But, to my amazement, i painted some strange lines in the bag, ultra- carefully scooped in the meringue, and piped out the most delicately swirled meringue cookies I have ever seen! It was a success.
The only changes i made to the recipe were not using vanilla bean because really- I am not paying fifteen dollars for a tiny dried out bean that we can hardly taste. So i also wanted mine to be lemon meringue so i added in a 1/2 teaspoon of lemon extract to my meringue batter. it is important to make sure the extract is added in after the sugar has been melted into the eggs and the eggs are being beaten. It seems to work better than adding it to the hot mix. Another important tip for making this recipe is using extreme care when scooping the meringue into the intricately painted piping bag, as to not smear the lines and end up with all one color meringues. Her is the link to Martha's recipe that also includes a video:http://www.marthastewart.com/899362/meringue-swirls
Wow i'm going to have to try this! Looks Delicious! Check out my blog? http://thiisorthat.wordpress.com/
ReplyDeleteThese look so good! They look really cool will the streak of yellow and swirled! Too cute...I'll have to try these some time!
ReplyDelete