Meringues

I managed to get a photo after more than half had disappeared.

I'm not sure what possessed me but I decided I wanted to make meringes. I think I had been thinking about birthday parties, and how my mum used to make the best party food, including beautiful pink and white meringue kisses (2 meringues joined together by creamy icing). 

The problem was that I didn't think ahead. When making meringues, it is usually best to do them last thing at night, and after cooking for about an hour, turn the oven off and let them cool completely in the oven. I made them in the afternoon, and then needed the oven to make roast chicken and vegetables. Ooops. After an hour of cooking the meringues, I pulled them out and assumed I had a disaster, but I was wrong. The next morning when we tried them (after they had been abandoned on the bench overnight). They were a little cracked on top, but beautiful and crumbly/crunchy on the top, and just a little gooey and chewy in the middle. They were SO delicious. So, if you have a couple of egg whites handy, I recommend giving them a try, they were a real hit with all the children! (and they all disappeared before I had time to make the icing to turn them into kisses!)

There are quite a lot of recipes on the net, but this is the one that I used, which is a bit of a conglomeration of others. 

3 egg whites (room temperature)

180 grams caster sugar

couple of drops of vinegar

pinch of cream of tartar

small splash of vinegar

small splash of red food colouring

Preheat oven to around 150 degrees. Line 2 trays with baking paper. When separating the eggs, make sure there is no yolk in the whites or they won't whip properly. Beat eggs with cream and tartar until white and fluffy. Slowly add vinegar followed by sugar (very slowly), vanilla essence  and food colouring. Spoon mixture into a piping bag (you can just use a freezer bag with the end snipped if you don't have a piping bag, just be careful it doesn't burst!). Carefully pipe small amounts of mixture onto lined trays, leaving around 2 cm between each meringue. Place trays into oven for around 1 hour, then turn off oven and leave to cool completely. Cross your fingers and hope that they turn out ok! 

A friend of mine said that her mother would always make meringues at the same time she made mayonnaise (egg whites for meringues and yolks for mayonnaise). Do you make meringues of mayonnaise and have a recipe that always works for you?