Make these super cute and delicious treats!
Meringues are such a fun and easy treat to make. The perfect delicate sweet treat. We especially like to make meringues in the Spring. There are many different versions of meringues from vanilla to chocolate to even mint. Meringues make the perfect vehicle for trying different extracts for flavoring.
Simple Ingredients
The ingredients needed to make meringues are so very simple and very easy to find around the house. You will need:
- 3 Large Egg Whites, at room temperature. Be sure the eggs are large in size. Since we have a lot of bantams on the farm, we sometimes have to use an extra egg.
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅛ teaspoon cream of tartar
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
Depending on the size of the meringues you make, you should get around 24 treats.
Tips to Remember
To make the best meringues possible there are a few tips to remember. Your bowls, utensils, anything that is going to be touching the meringue needs to be oil/grease-free. Be sure to clean everything thoroughly before starting to mix up your meringues. You can wipe the bowl down with some white vinegar to be sure there is no oil residue.
Be sure your eggs are at room temperature when making meringues. When separating the eggs, it is very important no yolk is in the egg whites, or your meringues, won’t meringue (is that the right word?).
The last tip is to be sure your cream of tartar is very fresh. This is going to help to stabilize your meringue and sometimes if you don’t use the cream of tartar often, you may have an older bottle in your pantry.
Meringue Time!
To whip up your meringue you can use either a stand mixer or a hand mixer. The hand mixer method will take a little longer. Whichever you choose, use the whisk attachment for mixing up your meringues. While you’re making your meringue preheat your oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
Add the egg whites, vanilla, and cream of tartar into the mixing bowl and start to mix until the egg whites are frothy, and start to form very soft peaks.
After your egg whites have reached the frothy stage, start adding in the granulated sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time. Wait about 10-15 seconds before every addition of a tablespoon of sugar. This will help to ensure the sugar is well incorporated into the meringue.
Continue to whip your meringue after all the sugar has been added until the meringue holds stiff peaks, this takes about 5 or so more minutes.
While your meringue is whipping up, prepare 2 cookie sheets with a piece of parchment on each of them.
Let’s Hatch Some Peeps!
To make forming your meringues very easy, we suggest using piping bags for this design. You will need 3 piping bags, and into those bags add decorating tips. We used tips 12, 2, and 1. These are all tips you can find very easily. Side note I’m a former Wilton cake decorating teacher, so I can remember those tip sizes in my sleep, haha!
Back to the meringue! Take 2 small bowls, and add about ¼ cup into each bowl. You will color 1 bowl with black food coloring, and the other bowl with orange food coloring. If you just have primary food coloring on hand, don’t worry. Equal parts of red, blue, and yellow food coloring will make black food coloring. Red and yellow will give you a beautiful orange color. I suggest using gel food coloring always. The gel won’t change the consistency of the meringue, frosting, whatever you are working with.
Color the remaining meringue with a few drops of yellow food coloring, and transfer to the piping bag with the size 12 (large dot) tip. Add the “eye” colored meringue into the bag with the size 1 tip, and the feet/beak orange color add to the tip 2 decorating bag.
Creating the Peeps!
Pipe your chicks onto the cookie sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them. You can form your chicks however you would like, it’s basically just a drop shape. Squeeze the piping bag to make an inch or so the bottom and slowly release bag pressure as you move the bag up to the point.
For the feet, we just made little “v’s” and for the beaks, just little lines or small triangles. The eyes are simply 2 dots. You can get as creative as you would like for decorating!
Bake your newly formed chick meringues in the oven for 45 minutes, and then turn the oven off and let the meringues stay in the oven for another 30 minutes.
Don’t open the door of the oven until the meringues are fully cooled off or you will get the crinkly texture on the outside (like in our picture). It happens, it’s ok, they still taste amazing! After the peep meringues are completely cool, store them in an air-tight container.
Hopefully, we have given you some inspiration to make some super cute and tasty peep meringues! Such a fun treat to make! Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to follow our adventures! Happy Spring!
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