Meringues are pretty eggwhite cookies. They’re very tricky beasties, but once you get the hang of them, they’re delicious and not too hard to whip up. Plus, they are mostly air, so you can eat about twenty of them without having to feel too guilty.
Preheat the oven to 250º.
First, you need to separate the eggwhites without breaking the yolk or getting your hands on the egg, because the fat of the yolk and the oils from your hands are both perfectly capable of preventing the batter from frothing up properly. Crack an egg into a separate bowl, fish the yolk out with two spoons, and pass it back and forth between the spoons gently until the white has detached from it. Then discard the yolk. If the yolk breaks and any of it gets into the white, you can save it for scrambled eggs or eggdrop soup or an omelette, but it’s no good for meringues: try again with a fresh dish. When you have as many egg whites as you’d like to turn into meringues (each eggwhite makes about 20 little cookies, possibly fewer if you don’t put in any extra ingredients), dump them into a mixing bowl. Add a pinch each of salt and cream of tartar per eggwhite.
Get an electric mixer (you don’t want to try this by hand) and beat the crap out of your eggwhites. Keep it up until they form stiff peaks (that is, if you stop the mixer and pull it out of the bowl, it will leave behind solid impressions of where the beaters were, and not just slosh back in to fill the hole).
Measure out a scant half a cup of sugar per eggwhite, or 3/4 cup per two. Use superfine if you have it, but granulated will do. Sprinkle it in a little at a time while continuing to beat the crap out of your batter. When the sugar has all been poured in, continue beating for a few more minutes and add a quarter-teaspoon of vanilla extract per eggwhite. (If you’re making an unusual flavor of meringues, you could add something else at this step – almond extract, for instance, or some lemon juice.)
Add the solid ingredient of your choice, folding it in gently. I make chocolate chip meringues almost invariably, but you can include whatever you like – I’ve seen a number of recipes that call for nuts, for instance.
Spoon small dollops of meringue onto paper towels (I have tried parchment paper and aluminum foil and they wind up burning the cookies) on cookie sheets. Sprinkle them with cocoa powder or some other decoration (colored sugar, nuts, whatever you like) and pop them in the oven. Start checking them at ten minutes or so; poke them gently with a finger and see if they feel dry or not. When they feel dry, pull them out. If they get even a little brownish (including on the curly little bits on top), pull them out right away.
They will be chewier than storebought meringues, but dramatically cheaper and just as tasty. If you want crispier meringues, try a lower oven temperature and leave them in longer, but remember, you don’t want them to turn brown.
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