Halloween Ghost Meringue Cookies

 
Ingre­di­ents:

3 lg egg whites ( be very sure that no yolk remains in the whites, the fat will pre­vent the whites from peak­ing correctly)
3/4 cup gran­u­lated sugar
scant 1/4 tea­spoon cream of tar­tar (egg whites ben­e­fit from a small bit of acid to help them whip right)
A pip­ing bag (cake dec­o­rat­ing bag)
bak­ing sheets lined with either parch­ment or sil­pat liners
Wilton Black Sparkle dec­o­rat­ing gel

Direc­tions:

Sep­a­rate the whites from the yolks. Save the yolks in the fridge for another recipe. Let whites rest on counter until room tem­per­a­ture. Place in a very clean, dry bowl of a mixer. Beat at a low speed until whites look frothy & cloudy.

Increase mix­ing speed to medium and add the cream of tartar.

Mix until whites reach soft peak stage. The soft peak stage is reached when the peaks of the whites droop slightly, when the beater is turned off and lifted.

Increase mixer speed to high. Add the sugar at this stage. I added it at a steady stream on the inside edge of the bowl. Beat until firm peaks form. The egg white foam will become smooth, moist and shiny. Stop the beat­ers and then lift them — straight peaks should form.

Now con­tinue beat­ing on high until stiff peaks are formed. Whites will be very stiff and glossy. Make sure they are com­plete to this stage if you want defined peaks at the top of your cookies.

If you need a guide for the size of the meringues, use parch­ment and draw 1 inch cir­cles in pen­cil on one side of the parch­ment. They can be as close as an inch apart as the meringue doesn’t spread as it bakes. Flip the parch­ment over and place on the bak­ing sheet. You should be able to see the pen­cil lines through the parchment.

Pre­heat your oven to 225 degrees Fahrenheit.

I find that for these ghosts, just using the open­ing of the pip­ing bag instead of a dec­o­rat­ing tip worked best.

Scoop the meringue into the pip­ing bag.

Close and pipe cir­cles onto the parch­ment, fill­ing to fit the cir­cles. Pipe out the meringue in the shape of lit­tle ghosts. Pull up at the end to make the peak. The tips should look like choco­late kisses. Just prac­tice to get this shape. The not-perfect ones still taste deli­cious, and the vari­ety gives the ghosts personality!

When all meringue is used or pans are filled, place into the oven for 1 hour and 30 min­utes. Don’t peek! Let set on pans for a few hours after done bak­ing before dec­o­rat­ing. They are a lit­tle frag­ile, espe­cially at the tip, but so yummy!

When cooled, add eyes and a mouth using dec­o­rat­ing gel. Make them dif­fer­ent look­ing to give the ghosts some charm!

Pretty sim­ple huh? How many cook­ies you pro­duce will depend on the shape and size. These ghosts were about 1 1/2 inches across the bot­tom, and about 2 inches tall.

Source: secretlifeofachefswife.com