Meringue Cookies - Cute & Easy Halloween Candy Recipe
These cute, colorful, and crunchy meringue cookies in spooky ghost shapes can be your perfect Halloween candies. Made of a glossy and stable Italian meringue, these egg white cookies can be stored in the freezer for up to a month.
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.