Meringue Cookies

By norsegal8

Brittle, snap-crackly and crunchy cookies made from meringue can be simple or fanciful. Piping the cookies out with a plain tip in short sticks will give you a very basic cookie; fitting your decorating tube with a star tip and piping out shells, stars and curlicues will produce whimsical cookies. Leave them plain and they will be elegant little espresso go-alongs; sandwich them with bittersweet chocolate, luxurious buttercream or jam and you've got the stuff of petit fours, perfect for Champagne.

Ingredients

• 1 resipe plain meringue

Details

Servings 5

Preparation

Step 1

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to between 175°F and 200°F. Put parchment paper on 2 large baking sheets or jelly roll pans.
Gently spoon the meringue into a large, grease-free pastry bag fitted with a star tip.
Lift each corner of the parchment paper and pipe out a little dab of meringue to glue the paper to the baking sheets. Pipe out rows of cookies in any variety of shapes that appeals to you. You can pipe the cookies close to one another, as these really don’t spread. The number you get will depend on the shapes you choose to pipe, but you will probably get about 5 dozen.

BAKING THE COOKIES
Bake the cookies for 45 minutes to 1 hour, keeping an eye on them. The finished meringues should be dry and crisp but still white – pull them from the oven the instant they take on any color. Slide the parchment off of the baking sheets and onto cooling racks. When the cookies are cool, pull them off the paper – they should come right off. The cooled cookies are ready to serve, frost, dip in chocolate or spread with jam.

STORING
Meringues will keep for a few days, if not weeks, if you store them in a cool, dry place. They must be kept airtight, because they turn chewy when the air around them is moist or humid. If you are not planning to do any baking for a while, a turned-off oven is a great place to keep meringues, but don’t forget they are in there.