Meringue Kisses

Recipe Card - Liv's meringue kisses

Prep time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours

Makes: 36 kisses

Ingredients

· 300g of caster sugar

· 150g egg white (roughly 5 large eggs)

· ½ tsp Cream of Tartar

· 3 tsp of vanilla flavouring

· Food Colouring (optional)

Instructions

1. Pour sugar onto a lined baking sheet and put into a 200C fan forced oven for 5 to 7 minutes until the edges start to brown. Once you have removed the sugar from the oven decrease the temperature to 100C.

2. While the sugar is in the oven place your egg whites and cream of tartar in your stand mixer and whisk on low. Once you start to see bubbles increase the speed to high and continue to whisk until stiff peaks form.

3. Start to add the hot sugar one spoonful at a time and continue until all sugar is incorporated making sure that the sugar dissolves between each spoonful.

4. Continue to whisk for another 5 minutes to ensure all sugar is dissolved. Check by rubbing a bit of the mixture in between two fingers to make sure there is no grit left.

5. At this point you can add the flavour and colour and mix on high for 20 seconds to incorporate

6. Line a new baking sheet ready for piping. And prepare a piping bag with a star or round tip.

7. Using a paintbrush or skewer stripe three or four lines of colouring gel down the inside of the piping bag from tip to top and then fill with the meringue mixture.

8. Holding your piping bag vertically pipe each kiss an 1.5 inches wide carefully drawing the piping bag in an upwards motion to create a perfect tip on each one. Each kiss should be about 2cm apart from the next one. They wont expand too much but careful attention should be given to try and get them all the same size. Each one will have a unique colour as the coloured stripes dissipate the more you pipe.

9. Cook low and slow for an hour and half on 100C. For soft centre check them at 1 hour and 10 minutes. Harder meringue should be left for the hour and a half. They will feel dry on the outside but still wiggle a little and will completely set once cooled.

10. Leave the meringues in the oven and turn it off leaving the door very slightly ajar. Too much cool air will wrinkle the outside of the kisses.

11. Once completely cooled store in an airtight container. If left out the kisses will get very sticky as the sugar meets humidity.

Notes:

Flavouring

You can use any flavour you fancy. I have quite a few that I will list below with amounts to add and cooking time. Each flavour will vary in amount depending on how strong the essence or extract is.

· Vanilla - 3 tsps (you can never have too much vanilla!)

· Rosewater/musk – 1 tsp plus 1 tsp vanilla. Cook for 2 hours on 100C

· Lemon – ½ tsp – 1 hour 20 minutes on 100C

· Lavender – ½ tsp. Cook for 1 hour 50 minutes on 100C

· Peppermint – 1 tsp. Great for Christmas 1 hour 20 minutes on 100C

Piping size

You can do mini kisses at around ¾ inch wide. The process is all the same with cooking time reducing to 1hour 20 minutes on 75C if you can get your oven that low. Otherwise 1 hour 10 minutes on 100C

Piping Tips

My personal favourites are Wilton 1M for star kisses or 2A for perfect round kisses and a 12 for round mini and 22 for star mini.

Bigger batch

You can definitely increase the batch size. I can comfortably fit 1.5 times on a normal kitchen aid mixer without the fear of life that you have made a huge mistake once the egg whites start to form.

Use By

I find they last for months in a VERY airtight container. I also heat seal in a cello bag with a cute ribbon for gorgeous gifts. Once they are out in the open they become tacky very quickly but they still taste THE BEST!

Colouring

I use gel colouring because you only need the smallest amount in the batch and they don’t change the consistency like the more liquid colouring does. For the stripes gel also hold better on the piping bag without dripping.