Strawberry Meringue Kisses

This week I have been baking lemon tarts however as a little bonus bake I whipped up a batch of meringues as I didn't want to waste the egg whites that weren't needed for the tart recipe.

This is a very simple meringue recipe which you can adapt any way you like - I decided to go for little meringue 'kisses' which I coloured with pink and added some freeze dried strawberries before cooking.

You can let your imagination run away with you, this basic meringue recipe can be adapted in colour, favour, shape and size dependant on what takes your fancy!






For the basic meringue recipe you will need:

• Large egg whites
• 80g caster sugar per egg white
• A pinch of cream of tartar

I had 4 egg whites to use up so used 320g of caster sugar which made approximately 45 kisses at 4.5cm each.

Using an electric whisk or freestanding mixer, whisk the egg whites and cream of tarter until soft peaks form. Add half of the sugar a spoonful at a time, whisking constantly. Sprinkle the remaining sugar over the mixture and fold it in using a metal spoon.

That's it - at this point add any flavourings you would like.

After piping / spooning your meringues onto a lined baking tray, cook them at 80c (fan) for between 1-2 hours depending on the size. Meringues cook really slowly as it is a drying out process. When they are crisp to the touch, turn the oven off and allow your bake to cool in there completely.

Paint the inside of your piping
 bag to add stripes of colour
to your meringues

If you wanted to colour your kisses like I have, using a paintbrush, paint the inside of your piping bag with a few stripes of food colouring - I have gel food colourings which stick well to the piping bags - this technique obviously won't work with liquid colourings. Instead you which just need to roughly incorporate colour into your mixture to create a marbled effect.  You don't need to use much colouring at all as the white meringues will pick up the colour really well.

If you wanted ,you can do as I did and scatter from freeze dried strawberries on which won't give masses of flavour but will and a hint of strawberry goodness.

A simple solution to any left over egg whites - you could dip them in chocolate to add a little extra, serve with ice-cream or make them into an eton mess, the possibilities are endless.

Happy baking - let me know how you get on.

Rach x