Description
Delightfully light and airy peppermint meringues that add a festive touch to any holiday cookie tray. These crisp confections are infused with refreshing peppermint flavor and decorated with festive red stripes, making them both visually appealing and deliciously sweet. Perfect for gifting or enjoying with a cup of tea, these meringues are surprisingly easy to make with simple ingredients and baking techniques.
Ingredients
Scale
Ingredients
- 3 large egg whites
- ¾ cup sugar
- 1 drop peppermint concentrate or ½ teaspoon pure peppermint extract
- Red gel-paste food coloring
Instructions
- Preheat and prepare baking sheets. Preheat your oven to 175°F (80°C) and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Fit a pastry bag with a small open-star tip such as Wilton M1 and set aside.
- Dissolve sugar in egg whites over simmering water. Place the egg whites and sugar into a heatproof bowl. Set this bowl over a pan of simmering water, stirring gently until the sugar fully dissolves and the mixture is warm to the touch, about 2 to 3 minutes. This step helps create a smooth meringue.
- Whisk the mixture to stiff peaks. Transfer the bowl to an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whisk on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form, meaning the egg whites hold a firm peak when the whisk is lifted.
- Add peppermint flavor. Gently mix in the peppermint concentrate or extract into the meringue mixture, ensuring the flavor is evenly incorporated.
- Decorate the pastry bag. Using a clean small paintbrush, paint 2 or 3 stripes of red gel-paste food coloring along the inside of the pastry bag. This gives the meringues a festive striped effect when piped.
- Pipe meringue shapes. Fill the prepared pastry bag with 1 to 2 cups of the meringue mixture. Pipe small star shapes about ¾-inch high evenly spaced on the prepared baking sheets. Refill the bag as necessary, repainting with food coloring stripes for each refill to maintain the decorative effect.
- Bake the meringues. Bake in the preheated oven for about 1 hour and 40 minutes, until the meringues are crisp but not browned. The low temperature and long baking time ensure a dry and crispy texture.
- Cool in the oven. Once baking time is complete, turn the oven off and leave the meringues inside for an additional 30 minutes. This gradual cooling helps prevent cracking.
- Cool completely and store. Remove from the oven and let the meringues cool completely on the baking sheets set on wire racks. Once cooled, transfer to a sealed container to keep them crisp until serving.
Notes
- Light and airy peppermint meringues are the perfect addition to any holiday cookie tray!
- They’re surprisingly easy to make and always a hit with guests.
- Use a low oven temperature and slow baking for crisp, melt-in-your-mouth texture.
- If you don’t have peppermint concentrate, pure peppermint extract works well as a substitute.
- To achieve the striped effect, be sure to paint the inside of the pastry bag before filling.
- Store meringues in an airtight container to maintain crispness and freshness.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 3 cookies
- Calories: 21 kcal
- Sugar: 5 g
- Sodium: 6 mg
- Fat: 0 g
- Saturated Fat: 0 g
- Unsaturated Fat: 0 g
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 5 g
- Fiber: 0 g
- Protein: 0.5 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
