Every year I make some cookies and send them with Hubby to work around the holidays for those awesome people in his office. I don’t know them all that well, but they are the ones who trade shifts and cover for Hubs when he is sick, or better yet, when we want to do a little traveling. This year I have been a bit busy, so I needed a quick and easy recipe that still delivered the promise of a tasty treat. Meringue Cookies to the rescue! I used lemon flavouring in these, but feel free to use any extract you like. These are adapted from a Joy the Baker recipe that used peppermint… I can imagine that is just heavenly!
OM NOM NOM NOM
Ingredients
3 large free run egg whites – no they do not have to be free run… but they kind of should be.
3/4 cup sugar – I used evaporated cane sugar and it worked well, as would regular sugar.
1/2 tsp lemon extract
Place the egg whites and sugar into a glass bowl and place over a pot of simmering water, the way you would to temper chocolate. Stir together until mixture is warmed but not hot, about 3 minutes.
Using a hand mixer or stand mixer, whiz eggs and sugar together until stiff peaks form. Add lemon… give it another whirl. Put into a piping bag and make some funky shaped cookies.
Bake at 175 degrees for an hour or until the outer shell of the cookie is stiff to the touch. Try not to brown them. They should still be soft in the middle, but they will hold up to being picked up like regular cookies.
Happy Cooking!
2 comments
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December 20, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Kelly Rusk
Love these!!
My mom’s recipe is the same but I think she bakes for 45-an hour then turns off the oven and leaves them in for at least another 2 hrs. Makes for an amazing texture (when you have the time of course)
Someones she’d make them late evening and leave them in the off oven overnight, awesome surprise in the am!
December 20, 2011 at 2:26 pm
simplyfreshottawa
It is all about the long cooking time. Low and slow! That way they stay soft in the middle but are crisp enough on the outside that you can pick them up without smooshing them.