AREN'T THEY CUTE
For those that don't know, meringues are cookies made from beaten egg whites and sugar. They're crunchy on the outside and light, chewy, melt-in-your-mouth on the inside.
They're a relatively easy cookie to make (once you've got the egg white part down) and technically only need to be two ingredients: sugar and egg whites! They're also super fun to decorate so I'm thinking about making little ghosts or pumpkins from them once it's closer to Halloween.
MUSHROOM MERINGUES
2 large egg whites (room temperature)
1/2 cup sugar
dash of vanilla extract (optional)
cocoa powder (to dust, optional)
melted chocolate
NOTE: Watch my video on how to properly whip your egg whites before starting— it has tips on how to whip the egg whites properly to stiff peaks.
Separate your egg whites and egg yolk. Using room temperature egg whites will make the whipping process a lot easier. Whisk your whites until everything is frothy and bubbly— should be white-ish in color.
Once it reaches that stage, sprinkle in a third or a fourth of your sugar in and continue whipping until everything's dissolved (or should be around 2 minutes in between). Repeat until all your sugar is used and dissolved. It should be very fluffy at this point.
Next, add in your vanilla extract. Adding in the extract is optional, but makes it taste better! Continue whisking until everything is light and fluffy— reaching the stiff peaks stage.
At this point, put your meringue into a piping bag or Ziploc bag with a fitted tip (or you can cut it the corner off. You can place the meringue pretty close together since they don't expand that much. Your two shapes are the caps (more fat and round) and the stems (taller and smaller), you can refer back to my video! Make sure there are equal stems and caps. Dust the caps with a bit of cocoa powder to mimic the effect of mushroom caps in the forest. If you want the caps to be completely smooth, you can dip your finger in a bit of water to pat and smoothen it out.
Put into your oven at 225°F for around an hour (it may be less if it's smaller in size) and let it sit in the oven and let it cool completely before eating (around an hour).
Once out of the oven, you can start assembling! Melt some chocolate (any kind, I like semi-sweet to balance the flavors) and put it on the mushroom stems. Using a toothpick or chopstick, make a hole big enough for you to attach the stems. Once all of them are done and standing, you can put it in the fridge for ~15 minutes for the chocolate to harden.
Now you have your mushrooms!
IMPORTANT: I'm fortunate enough to be able to connect with everyone on here through baking and food but there are also many important issues going on that needs attention. Continue to learn, educate yourself, and grow. I can't provide direct links at this point but please search up 'BLM caards' and/or 'current info caards'.