Meringue cookies are a great way to use any leftover egg whites you have. I had exactly 4 egg whites left after making Bomboloni with Vanilla Maple Custard. They are one of those sweet treats you can bake and forget about because it needs to cool in the oven, unlike most baked goods. Plus, you don’t need any fancy ingredients. All the ingredients could easily be found in your kitchen. 

Meringue cookies are great gifts because you could pipe them in various shapes and sizes or use different colours to make them fun. I made my meringue cookies in a white and pink swirl for my nieces. 

Tips

• White Vinegar – You can use a ½ tsp of white vinegar to clean your mixing bowl beforehand. Please ensure your bowl is clean and dry. You need to make sure the bowl is free from any moisture. 
• Egg Whites – It’s also important for your egg whites to bring your egg whites to room temperature before beating them. When they’ve warmed up a bit, the whipped eggs will give you a better volume. 
• Lemon Juice – I used lemon juice instead of cream of tartar because I couldn’t find any in my supermarkets nearby. Also, I always have lemons at home and love how it’s a natural ingredient. 
• Sugar – You could easily use granulated/caster sugar for this recipe but I would recommend giving them a good grind in a food processor or Nutribullet. This would ensure the texture isn’t too grainy. However, I feel like the meringues are not as stiff afterward when I used fine-grained sugar or icing sugar.
• Almond Essence – In my recipe, I added almond essence because I didn’t like the strong egg smell in my test batch. Don’t use too much almond essence since it has a strong odor that might overpower the vanilla essence. You can also substitute vanilla for other essences such as rose. I did so to make some Bandung flavored meringue cookies. 
• Patience! It might seem long and tedious on your first try but stick to it. You’ll be patting yourself on the back when it’s done. 
• Be gentle with your meringue especially when folding in your essence and food coloring gel. You wouldn’t want to deflate any of the air you have worked so hard to get. 

Ingredients

• 4 Egg Whites, room temperature
• 1 tsp Lemon Juice or ½ tsp Cream of Tartar 
• ¾ cup – 1 cup / 200g Granulated Sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• ¼ tsp Almond Extract (optional)
• Food Colouring Gel (optional)

1. Preheat your oven to 120°C.
2. Use a stand mixer or a hand mixer, beat the egg whites on medium-low speed until it’s foamy and opaque. This stage would be before it starts forming any peaks. 

3. Add in your cream of tartar or lemon juice to help stabilize the eggs when beating. Continue beating your eggs on medium-low speed. Remember to use a rubber spatula to gently scrape the sides of the bowl. 

4. When the mixture has soft peaks, you can slowly add in 1 tbsp of sugar at a time. Soft peaks can be seen when you pull out your mixer perpendicular up from the bowl and turn it over. The peak will lean down instead of standing straight. 

Be sure to mix in the sugar for a minute or so before adding the next tablespoon of sugar. This will prevent a grainy texture for your meringue. 

5. You will notice your meringue starting to thicken. Your peaks will be standing straight when you pull them out of the bowl. When you have stiff peaks, you can start folding in your vanilla essence and almond essence. A typical recipe would just call for 1 tsp of vanilla but I like how almond helps eliminate any egg-like smell and taste from the meringue.
6. You can gently fold in your color gel of choice. You can separate to various bowls from varying colors. Or just simply transfer your meringue to a piping bag with a tip of your choice. 

7. Start piping! Please leave about 1cm to 1.5cm spaces between your meringue cookies. They don’t expand much unlike cookies so you can have many rows of meringue cookies per tray. The larger your meringue cookie, the longer it needs to bake.
8. Drop the temperature of your oven to 90-100°C and pop your trays into the oven for 70-80 minutes. It’s important to not open your oven door at all during the baking time. This will prevent any form of cracking.

You can basically put them in and forget about them (haha). Use your oven light to watch your meringue cookies. After 80 minutes, allow your meringue cookies to cool down in your oven. If you have the dehydrator or fan function in your oven, use it to really dry out the meringue cookies. They should be dry to touch and you can then store them in any airtight containers for over a week. 

Original recipe by Sugar Hero