If you are interested in building up the muscles in your arm this is the way to go.
Else, you are better off going with an electric mixer.
If you ever watch Alton Brown on the Food network I am sure he can tell you what to use. But I have to admit I went to Walmart and bought the cheapest mixer my pocket could afford and it was seven bucks. Yey!
Learning from my meringue cookie mistakes
Tools: Stainless Steel Bowl, electric mixer, Pam butter flavored cooking spray, cookie sheet, piping bag
Recipe called for: Sugar, egg whites, vanilla extract (or you can use grand mariner), Cream of tartar
Meringue Cooking experiment #1
I used someone’s recipe online. It was a disaster. Plus, I tried to whip my egg whites into shape by hand. Don’t do it as I mentioned earlier. I ran out of patience and my arm got so tired. I had to take a break, which is a bad idea when trying to whip egg whites.
Why? Because you need to whip continuously to increase the air pockets in the egg whites. Taking a break will cause the air bubbles to pop when you take a break. Thus, undoing all your hard work.
So basically, my mistake was taking a break in the middle of whipping the egg whites.
During this same session I tried again but I was so tired (it was late saturday night) that I spooned my batter into the cupcake tins. It took forever to cook, that I threw them away.
Meringue Cooking experiment #2
Cooking with a recipe is not a new thing to me. But when you are in a family of chiefs they memorize everything. Once you learn “your” recipe, you will have it memorized and it will become second nature to you. That’s when you have mastered it.
It is an experience to finally find out which recipe you like best.
If you realize that the recipe you like doesn’t exist, you have to create it for yourself. Luckily I didn’t have to make up my own recipe with the Meringue Cookies.
Still using the first recipe, I put my meringue in my piping bag with no end on it.
I sprayed pam on my cookie sheet. Wiped it down with a paper towel as I learned in my baking class. Filled the piping bag and piped my merainge into sprials no larger than a small sized cookie. No larger than three inches in diameter works best for me. I put meringue in the oven. My oven was set to 350 degrees as the recipe called for. The recipe said to cook it for 15mins.
They were browning. My husband is worried that I would burn them as he is my official taste tester. So I was in a scramble. I thought to myself who is well known for baked goods? Martha Stewart. So from my cook book library I grabbed Martha Stewart’s baking cook book. I adjusted the oven to 150 to cook for one hour and thirty minuets as Martha says. We managed to save my meringues but they were not professional.
What the recipe may not tell you when you make meringue cookies.
The center is a bit chewy when you take it out. When you bite it off you can feel the sugar start to cool off. When your cookies are completely cooled, they will be consistently crispy all the way through.
Meringue Cooking experiment #3
Now that I had the right recipe I thought I have it memorized by heart.
But my biggest mistake here is that I put twice as much sugar as the recipe called for. Thus, it took twice as long to whip and twice as long to bake. I did not use grand mariner this time. I used pure vanilla extract.
I have to say they came out beautiful! The cookies were extra sweet but very delicious.
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