These cute, sweet, and crunchy meringue cookies in spooky ghost shapes 👻 can be your perfect Halloween candies.
The colorful spooky faces are made of a glossy and stable Italian meringue. We will also use pejoy biscuit sticks to make our lollipop sticks edible and delicious.
These gluten-free meringue cookies can be stored in the freezer and stay crunchy for up to a month.
Are you ready to surprise your families and friends this year with these lovely Halloween treats?
Now is a perfect time to get them ready!
French, Swiss, and Italian style meringue
A meringue is a foam whipped egg whites and stabilized by sugar. Meringue is widely used in making airy and fluffy desserts like soufflés, mousse, and chiffon cakes.
The meringue is divided into 3 types according to the preparing method: French meringue, Swiss meringue, and Italian meringue.
1. French meringue
French Meringue is the easiest one to make. To make French meringue, you just whip sugar into egg whites to create temporarily stable air bubbles.
Since French meringue will deflate within 10 minutes sitting under room temperature, you will need to bake French meringue as fast as possible to set the meringue.
The air bubbles in French meringue are large and fragile. Therefore, desserts made from French meringue, such as chiffon cakes and soufflés, are extra light and fluffy in texture.
You can use French meringue to make the most basic white meringue candies. However, in this Halloween ghost meringue candy recipe, we will need to dye the meringue into different colors and pipe it into different shapes. French meringue won’t be able to remain stable at room temperature for such a long time.
2. Swiss meringue
The process of making Swiss meringue is a little bit more complex than making French meringue. To make Swiss meringue, you will need to beat egg whites and sugar together over a hot water bath (the batter as at 40 to 50℃) until the sugar is fully dissolved.
Swiss meringue has a silky and sticky texture and a denser texture. It can be baked directly to make a cake base, or combined with cream to make buttercream icings.
Compared with French meringue, Swiss meringue is more stable and more suitable for making colorful meringue candies. You can use Swiss meringue to substitute Italian meringue in this current recipe if you are not comfortable with handling hot sugar syrup.
3. Italian meringue
The best (but also the hardest) method for making meringue candies is using Italian meringue. To make Italian meringue, you will need to pour hot sugar syrup (242°F /117°C) into whipped egg whites and whip them together until the meringue turns shiny and smooth.
Italian meringue is the most stable one among these three. Meringue candies made with Italian meringue will be shiny, crunchy, and less likely to crack or shrink. No matter how you fold or mix Italian meringue with food coloring, they won’t deflate or melt into liquid.
That’s why we are going to use Italian meringue in this meringue cookies recipe.
Equipment you will need:
Ingredients for Making Meringue Cookies:
- 300 g sugar (For making hot sugar syrup)
- 100 g water
- 4 large egg whites
- 60 g sugar (For whipping egg whites)
- ½ tsp cream of tartar (Can actually be skipped, or be substituted with 1 tsp of lemon juice/white vinegar)
- Food coloring
- 24 Pejoy biscuit sticks – cut into halves (Or lollipop sticks)
Step-by step Instructions:
1. Add 100g water and 300g sugar to a small saucepan, cook over medium high heat, stir until the sugar is fully dissolved. Once the syrup reaches a boil, stop stirring and reduce the heat to medium.
2. Set a food thermometer over the saucepan, make sure the sensing area is under water without touching the bottom of the saucepan. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until the syrup reaches 242°F (117°C).
3. Meanwhile, separate 4 egg whites and egg yolks (You can save the egg yolks to make egg tarts). Add 4 egg whites and ½ tsp cream of tartar (or 1 tsp lemon juice) to a large mixing bowl. Use medium-low speed (speed 2 out of 6) of a hand mixer to whip the egg whites for 1 minutes until fish eye size bubbles form.
4. Add 30g sugar into the egg whites, use medium-low speed to whip the egg whites for 2 minutes until “soft peaks” form. Add another 30g sugar into the egg whites, use medium-low speed to whip the egg whites for 2 minutes until “stiff peaks” form.
5. Remove the syrup from the heat once it has reached 242°F. With the hand mixer running on medium-low speed, carefully drizzle the hot syrup over the egg whites. You can pour the hot syrup in a thin continuous stream, or in 6 to 7 times, within 2 minutes. (Make sure you do not pour the hot syrup to the hand mixer beaters or the wall of the bowl.) Increase the speed to medium-high, beat for about 1 minute until the egg whites are glossy with stiff peaks formed.
6. Divide the meringue into 5¼ portions. Collect some gel food coloring with a toothpick, and dye the meringue into colors of your choice. (I used red, orange, green, blue, and black food colorings. Since I would only use black meringue for drawing eyeballs, I only dyed ¼ portion of meringue into black.) Transfer colored meringue to piping bags.
7. Preheat your oven to 175°F (80°C). Ideally use the “convection bake” mode. If your oven doesn’t have a fan, you can also use the regular “bake” mode.
8. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Place 24 Pejoy biscuit sticks (or lollipop sticks) onto each baking sheets. Pipe dot of meringue on the top of each biscuit stick, so that they can stick to the parchment paper without moving around.
9. Pipe some circles, flowers, or ghost shapes with colorful meringue. Draw more details with black and white meringue. (Note: You can flatten the tiny curled end of meringue with a wet finger.)
10. Convection bake (ideally) or bake at 175°F (80°C) for 2 hours until the surface of the meringue cookies are not sticky to the touch. You can bake 2 sheets of meringue cookies at once.
11. Cool completely before serving or storing. To store, pack each meringue cookie individually in a treat bag, then store them in a large airtight container in the freezer for up to 1 month.
My other dessert recipes you will also like:
Meringue Cookies – Cute & Easy Halloween Candy Recipe
Equipment
- Kitchen scale
- Food thermometer
- Small saucepan
- hand mixer
- Piping bag and tips
- Baking sheet
Ingredients
- 300 g sugar (For making hot sugar syrup)
- 100 g water
- 4 large egg whites
- 60 g sugar (For whipping egg whites)
- ½ tsp cream of tartar (Can actually be skipped, or be substituted with 1 tsp of lemon juice/white vinegar)
- Food coloring
- 24 Pejoy biscuit sticks – cut into halves (Or lollipop sticks)
Instructions
- Add 100g water and 300g sugar to a small saucepan, cook over medium high heat, stir until the sugar is fully dissolved. Once the syrup reaches a boil, stop stirring and reduce the heat to medium.
- Set a food thermometer over the saucepan, make sure the sensing area is under water without touching the bottom of the saucepan. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until the syrup reaches 242°F (117°C).
- Meanwhile, separate 4 egg whites and egg yolks (You can save the egg yolks to make egg tarts). Add 4 egg whites and ½ tsp cream of tartar (or 1 tsp lemon juice) to a large mixing bowl. Use medium-low speed (speed 2 out of 6) of a hand mixer to whip the egg whites for 1 minutes until fish eye size bubbles form.
- Add 30g sugar into the egg whites, use medium-low speed to whip the egg whites for 2 minutes until "soft peaks" form. Add another 30g sugar into the egg whites, use medium-low speed to whip the egg whites for 2 minutes until "stiff peaks" form.
- Remove the syrup from the heat once it has reached 242°F. With the hand mixer running on medium-low speed, carefully drizzle the hot syrup over the egg whites. You can pour the hot syrup in a thin continuous stream, or in 6 to 7 times, within 2 minutes. (Make sure you do not pour the hot syrup to the hand mixer beaters or the wall of the bowl.) Increase the speed to medium-high, beat for about 1 minute until the egg whites are glossy with stiff peaks formed.
- Divide the meringue into 5¼ portions. Collect some gel food coloring with a toothpick, and dye the meringue into colors of your choice. (I used red, orange, green, blue, and black food colorings. Since I would only use black meringue for drawing eyeballs, I only dyed ¼ portion of meringue into black.) Transfer colored meringue to piping bags.
- Preheat your oven to 175°F (80°C). Ideally use the "convection bake" mode. If your oven doesn't have a fan, you can also use the regular "bake" mode.
- Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Place 24 Pejoy biscuit sticks (or lollipop sticks) onto each baking sheets.
- Pipe dot of meringue on the top of each biscuit stick, so that they can stick to the parchment paper without moving around. Pipe some circles, flowers, or ghost shapes with colorful meringue. Draw more details with black and white meringue. (Note: You can flatten the tiny curled end of meringue with a wet finger.)
- Convection bake (ideally) or bake at 175°F (80°C) for 2 hours until the surface of the meringue cookies are not sticky to the touch. You can bake 2 sheets of meringue cookies at once.
- Cool completely before serving or storing. To store, pack each meringue cookie individually in a treat bag, then store them in a large airtight container in the freezer for up to 1 month.
Video
I’m in Australia and I do not have a candy thermometer nor can I find one.
So making this was very difficult and I kept failing it.
Is there a way where we can do it without the thermometer?
There is a way! It’s called “Soft ball stage” in candy making because when you pour a tiny bit of your syrup into a cup of ice water you’ll be able to roll the syrup into a soft, pliable ball. This website explains it a bit better https://pastrymaestra.com/basic-techniques/how-to-cook-sugar-syrup/
First time making Italian meringue and it worked great! I didn’t add the 60 grams sugar and reduced the 300 grams to around 200 for the sugar syrup, and it still turned out amazing, though probably to a more tolerable level of sweetness (at least for me). The sugar should be adjusted to your taste.
Thanks so much for this recipe Ms. Shi!