Meringue Cookies

I bet with this recipe, you have all the ingredients in your kitchen. They are so easy to make, but at the same time they are slightly difficult.

For this recipe you will need egg whites, caster sugar and vanilla. That's it. Caster sugar is difficult to track down but you can make your own. Remember that blog about the food processor? Well I got to actually use it to make caster sugar.

The step by step:

Ingredients:

3 large egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar (sub with 1/4tsp lemon juice)
3/4 superfine or caster sugar
1/4 tsp  vanilla

Put rack in center. Preheat your oven to 200ºF. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.

To make the caster sugar, place into a food processor for 30 to 60 seconds until it's finer than normal sugar, but not quite powder. This may take some practice.

Using a hand mixer, beat the egg whites, on low-medium, until they are foamy. Add cream of tartar (or lemon juice) then beat until soft peaks form.

Add sugar in little by little. About a quarter to half cup at a time. Mix until the egg whites and sugar no longer feel gritty between your fingers.

Boost the mixer medium-high speed and continue to mix the meringue until stiff peaks form. You can tell you have stiff peaks by turning off the mixer and looking at the end of the beaters. The peaks will stand straight up.

Using two spoons, a pastry bag or in my case, as ziploc bag, carefully start putting dollops of meringue about 1/2 inch apart across the cookie sheet.

Place in oven and bake for 90 minutes. Once they are finished, remove from oven, allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing from baking sheet.

The meringue, if finished, should come right off the parchment sheets. The outsides will be hard and have a slight satin-y sheen to them while the insides will be soft, light and fluffy.