From time to time we will be sharing some of our baking basics.
Our Baking Basic for October is: Meringue Kisses

These miniature meringues are perfect for beginners, they can be piped into the standard meringue kiss shape or into intricately piped designs & shapes. Use them to decorate your cakes, cupcakes, ice cream & much more, they are also delicious to eat on their own too.

This recipe was created after trying several very different recipes for meringue kisses, whilst trying to find the perfect one for our new Eat Me Edible Meringue Transfer Sheet’s. Finally after lots of failed, or almost there, recipes I came up with my own one. I just love these you can choose to either have them squishy & gooey in the middle or crisp.
They are the tastiest & best Meringue Kisses I have made so far & work perfectly with our Eat Me Edible Meringue Transfer Sheet’s, so I thought I would share my recipe with you. Hope you love this recipe as much as I do.

Tips & Tricks:

ღ This Recipe can easily be halved, so you have enough mix for one of our Eat Me Edible Meringue Transfer Sheet’s/Tray. For the Egg whites 2 egg whites is approx 63ml.

ღ Please keep in mind that every oven can be different. If you have never made meringues before we recommend to do a test batch first & pipe them on baking paper rather then our Eat Me Edible Meringue Transfer Sheet’s.

ღ Do not let even the slightest bit of egg yolk into your egg whites, even a drop can mess up your mixture. Separate the egg in a separate bowl before adding it to your mixing bowl.

ღ Use liquid Egg Whites if you have a lot of meringues to make & don’t want a whole load of yolks left over (I used Two Chicks Liquid Egg Whites). Personally I prefer to use this most of the time as it also saves time separating eggs too.

ღ Replace the Vanilla Extract with other flavours. If you use a powder flavouring, whisk this in after the last tablespoon of caster sugar (whisk it in for 1-2mins).

ღ If you are in Sweden (or any other country that may sell this) I highly recommend using the Dr Oetker ‘Vaniljsocker’ (basically vanilla sugar) for the flavouring, it is my favourite! Always get it when I visit Sweden. With this sieve it into the caster sugar & stir, then add the caster sugar vanilla mix as mentioned. (I actually use a very fine miniature sieve so some of the sugar crystals do not go through as I want the vanilla flavouring mainly). With this you will get those vanilla ‘black flecks’ in your meringues & it won’t be such a bright white colour, but it is so delicious & they still look great I’m sure you won’t mind!

ღ Use a tall glass (preferably pint size) as a holder to help you fill your piping bag(s) with the finished meringue mix prior to piping.
Place the nozzle in the bag (if it’s a disposable one cut off the tip of the piping bag after you have placed the nozzle in the bag as a measure, so you do not cut too big of a hole in error). Put the piping bag (with nozzle attached) into the glass & pull the edges of the piping bag over the sides of the glass, so your piping bag is just hanging there. Now you are ready to put your meringue mixture in quickly & cleanly when it is mixed!

ღ Still grains of sugar in your mix? Just keep whisking!

ღ Not sure how to fold in icing sugar? Easiest way is to get your spatula, put it in your bowl at the edge & scrape around the side of the bowl then once you reach a full circle bring your spatula down to the centre of the bowl. Repeat this until all the icing sugar has been mixed in (no icing sugar on the edges of the bowl or lumps in the mixture).

ღ Whisk on Low to Medium settings, do not whisk on a high speed setting, otherwise this will create lots of larger air bubbles, which can cause the meringues to rise, spread & crack unevenly. Yes it will take longer to whisk on the lower speeds, but it is well worth it. Just keep whisking!

ღ Do not put baking paper under your Eat Me Edible Meringue Transfer Sheet’s, these sheets need to go directly onto your cold baking tray (printed/rough side up).

ღ Pipe 3.5cm diameter meringue kisses on to our 48 x Mini (2.5cm) sized designs on our Eat Me Edible Meringue Transfer Sheet’s.

ღ Pipe 4.5cm diameter meringue kisses on to our 24 x Small (3.5cm) sized designs on our Eat Me Edible Meringue Transfer Sheet’s.

ღ For our Chintz sheets you can pipe any size or shape that you would like. Why not try a ‘Sultan Ne Ring’ piping nozzle, so you can then thread some ribbon through them & hang them up, they make perfect Christmas Tree Decorations!

ღ To avoid the images bleeding (going blurry) on the meringues, pipe the first tray then place this into the oven, set the timer to 1 hour, then go & pipe your other tray of meringue kisses, then pop those in the oven too (check the time when you put the 2nd sheet you want both trays in the oven for at least an hour).
If you are very quick at piping (say 2-3 mins piping 1 tray) then you should be fine to put them both in at the same time. Basically you do not want the piped mixture standing waiting for too long on the sheets before it goes into the oven.
Even though it takes me less than 2 mins to pipe a tray full, I personally always like to pipe 1 tray place that into the oven then pipe the next, just helps to avoid any risk of the image bleeding (Means you can take your time piping more elaborate meringue shapes too).

ღ For soft & slightly gooey in the middle meringues (my favourites) you want to bake them for 1 hour (1hr 15 for small 4.5cm meringues, unless they come away cleanly at 1 hour too). Once they come clean away from the Eat Me Edible Meringue Transfer Sheet, take them out of the oven.

ღ For crisp meringues bake them for at least 1 hour & 30 minutes. (check them at 1 hour 15mins to make sure they are not over cooking and starting to go a golden colour). Then turn the oven off & leave them in there with the oven door slightly open for 1-2 hours (or over night if you can), this will help to dry them out & make them even crisper.

What is your favourite flavour for Meringue Kisses?