Hi troops....hope everyone had a good weekend.
Question for the group:
Just finished some of my holiday baking..everything came out great..love the new convection oven... Will do the rest later in the week. Tomorrow it’s baking day at the parish.
Anyways..I now have 8 egg whites in a sealed container in the fridge. I’d like to make some meringue cookies...I can’t stand them but lots of folks like them....must be the sugar high..as I am at a premium for space..any idea on how long the egg whites will last in the fridge? Can I freeze them and then thaw them in the fridge?
Many thanks..
Tiny peppermint stick meringues float on
Christmas morning coffee, hot cocoa, eggnog.
The peppermint stick look is easy to do:
Just paint vertical lines of paste color 2-3" apart
inside decorating bag. Fill w/ meringue.
Pipe nickel size-spirals onto sheetpan. Bake. Et voila.
Forgotten Kisses
Makes about 4 dozen cookies
Ingredients
2 large egg whites, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
2/3 cup superfine granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips or finely chopped semisweet chocolate
1 cup finely chopped pecans
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat egg whites until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and beat until fluffy but not at all dry. (Be careful not to over beat.) Add the sugar gradually, about 3 tablespoons at a time. When 1/2 of the sugar has been added, add the vanilla extract.
Continue beating and adding remaining sugar in batches, until all of the sugar is dissolved and the meringue is very shiny and tight. Gently fold in the chocolate chips and chopped nuts.
Working one teaspoon at a time, push a teaspoonful of meringue from the tip of 1 teaspoon with the back of another teaspoon onto the lined baking sheets, leaving 1-inch of space between cookies.
Place baking sheets in the preheated oven and turn the oven off. Leave the cookies (undisturbed) in the oven for at least 2 hours and up to overnight, or until cookies are crisp and dry.
Lots of people say that for macarons you should “age” the egg whites at least three days in a glass container in the fridge.
Simple Macarons
{makes about 40-ish shells for 20 cookies}
3/4 cup ground almond flour/meal
2/3 cup powdered sugar
2 large egg whites
3 & 1/2 TBSP granulated sugar
food color (optional)
buttercream, ganache, or Nutella for filling
Stack 2 cookie sheets, one top of the other, unless you are starting with very thick, insulated sheets. Use a 1.5” cookie cutter to trace guidelines for piping the macarons on a piece of parchment. Leave about 1 inch between each circle. Flip the parchment over, and place on the top cookie sheet.
Combine the almond flour and powdered sugar in a food processor. Process for about 30-seconds to 1 minutes, until combined. Sift the mixture or shake through a fine sieve into a bowl. (About 2 tablespoons of larger pieces are ok, just stir them into the rest.) Set aside.
In a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites on medium-low, until frothy. Increase the speed to medium, and continue whisking until soft peaks form, about 2 minutes. With the mixer running, gradually add in the granulated sugar. Scrape down the side of the bowl if needed.
Increase the speed to medium-high, beating until the eggs are glossy and come to a stiff peak. Add food coloring, if using, note that more food coloring may affect the baking time. (I used just a bit of AmeriColor Deep Pink.) Beat until the egg whites form a clump in the whisk attachment and are stiff.
Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and sift about half of the almond flour mixture over the meringue. Use a silicone spatula to fold into the meringue, using about 10 strokes; don’t expect it to come together completely. Sift the remaining almond flour mixture into the bowl, (it’s ok to add in the 2 TBSP or so of larger pieces that won’t go through the sifter), and continue to fold into the meringue.
Don’t worry about being gentle; you want to deflate the egg whites. Fold until the mixture comes together, but avoid overmixing. Be sure to scrape the bowl to avoid stray bits of meringue remaining unincorporated. The batter will loosen and start to fall in the “ribbon” off of the spatula. A ribbon or dollop of batter dropped back into the bowl, should reincorporate into the rest of the batter in 20-30 seconds. This should take no more than 50 strokes total.
Spoon the 1/2 the batter into a piping bag fitted with a 1/2” tip (I found that just using the coupler without a tip worked great for this). Pipe the batter onto the parchment, using the circles as a guide, staying just inside the lines (the batter will spread a bit). Repeat with the remaining batter.
Let the piped batter to dry for about 15 minutes-30 minutes while the oven preheats to 350.
Bake for 11-12 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking. The tops should be firm and glossy and the bottoms of the shells should have formed “feet” or frills at the bottom. When done, the cookies will lift fairly easily from the parchment.
Remove from the oven, place the cookie sheets on a wire rack and let cool completely on the sheet.
Once cool, remove the cookies from the parchment and fill. Lightly press the cookies together.
Macarons taste best after 24 hours, so place in a container between layers of wax paper and be patient. :) After 24 hours, remove from the refrigerator and let the cookies come to room temperature, or close to it, before serving.