Pink & Grey-striped Meringue Kisses

I finally got to try making meringue kisses! I had this idea in my head that they would be as troublesome as macarons, since they share similar ingredients, minus the almonds. But nope, meringue kisses are easy peasy! One really only needs two ingredients: egg whites and sugar! Of course, a pinch of salt and some flavouring just makes it taste even better. 

pink & grey-striped meringue kisses

The golden ratio when making meringue kisses is 2:1 of sugar to egg whites, by weight. Whip the egg whites until they get to stiff peaks (I checked by holding the bowl over my head!) Then, gradually add the sugar & a pinch of salt to the egg whites with the mixer on, until it's all incorporated. Let the mixer go for about 5 - 10 mins until all the sugar has been dissolved (check by poking your finger in the mixture, with the mixer off!, and rubbing it between your thumb and finger. If you feel any granules, mix again for another 5 mins)

if your spatula can stand in the egg whites, you've got stiff peaks!

Lastly, add in a teaspoon of whatever flavour you like. I used vanilla. You can even fold in chocolate chips in if you like! I wanted to make stripes on these meringue kisses. Yes, yes, it's my first time, but why make them plain white? Just step it up a notch and go all the way! 

paint stripes in the piping bag with food colouring

To get the stripes, I sat a large piping bag on a big beer mug, with the top part turned inside out, and then painted vertical stripes from the bottom to the top of the bag with some food colouring gel and a long paintbrush. Think I got in about 6 stripes all the way around the bag. One can even make each stripe a different colour for rainbow-striped meringue kisses!

marshmallow surprise

Then, carefully spoon the meringue mixture in the bag. Try not to crush your bag out of shape or your painted lines will get all messed up. Then, flip the top part of the bag right side up, and shake the bag a little, so that the meringue settles in properly. Twist the bag to seal. Use a large round or star piping tip to pipe the meringue kisses on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. 

all ready to pipe meringue kisses

I put little marshmallows on the baking sheet first and piped the meringue kisses on top of those, making them marshmallow-surprise meringue kisses! I sprinkled pink and white non-pareils on some of the kisses too, before putting them into the oven. Next time, I'm going to put milk chocolate Hershey kisses, and use mint extract to flavour these babies. Mmmm. mint-chocolate surprise meringue kisses! 

freshly piped, with nice & pointy tops

I baked the meringue kisses at 100C for 45 mins before they were set properly and could easily be lifted from the baking sheet. Baking temperature and time will vary depending on how crunchy you want them to be. 

So I made some with pink stripes, and some with grey stripes (using black food gel). The big lesson that I learned with the first batch was that once you pull them out of the oven, let them cool in an air-conditioned room!! I let the first batch cool on the counter, in open air, for maybe 10 mins, and they were affected by the humidity. Darn this tropical weather. So that's why you can see that there are little craters on the pink ones...where the water dissolved the sugar on the surface of the meringue kisses. Argh.

sad-looking "styrofoam" craters...

Of course, with the second batch of grey-striped meringue kisses, I cooled them immediately in an air-conditioned room and they came out perfect. Hooray, no tiny craters. 

much better when cooled in an aircon

I'm going to give these little pink, grey and white cuties to my friend, who's celebrating her baby girl's first month! I think they'll go perfectly with the party's colour scheme. 

pink and grey-striped meringue kisses