Chef Noriack's Meringue Bites
A tasty treat that is a wonderful combination of light, fluffy, and melt in the mouth goodness here with an easy to make and pretty meringue. It can be piped into many shapes and should hold them nicely through baking. Colors are easy to be added as well as different flavors too! I love flexible recipes.
Meringue Bites
Prep time - 20 to 30 minutes Bake Time - 3 to 4 hours.
What you’ll need:
½ cup of water 1 cup of sugar
¾ cups of egg whites (About four eggs, depending on size) 4 tsp of Cream of Tartar (One tsp for each egg.)
1 Tbsp vanilla extract (Or other flavor) Food coloring (optional)
A stand mixer with a whisk (You can try this by hand but you might need the arms and endurance of an Eldan. ) A small sauce pan with a lid A candy thermometer
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Start by separating your eggs ensuring no egg yolks are in the whites. This is very important as if even a small amount of egg yolk makes it into the egg whites it is possible the foam you’ll be creating won’t come together and you’ll just have a mess.
The safest way to separate egg whites is to do something I consider a quarantine method. Crack the egg and separate the egg white and yolk into two separate bowls (I prefer using my hands to separate the egg, but some do the shell to shell method) and once you are sure the white is clear of yolk move it into a third bowl of egg whites that are cleared for no yolks. The egg yolks can be frozen in ziploc bags or ice cube trays for use in further recipes for about a month or two.
Set the egg whites into the mixer bowl but don’t start the mixer yet. Egg whites closer to room temperature will come together more quickly in the mixer (Though you can whip them cold it just may take a little longer).
Combine the Water and Sugar in the small saucepan and stir over medium-high heat. Stir to combine with a wooden spoon and once all the sugar is dissolved put the lid on the pan. Let it cook for a few minutes with the lid on which will allow moisture to condense on the lid and then come down the sides, this will dissolve any excess sugar granules on the side of the pan. Why is that important? If an undissolved sucrose (sugar) molecule comes into contact with those that have been dissolved and heated to higher temperatures it causes a messy chain reaction of crystallization and you end up with grainy, yucky sugar. Don’t walk away though as if the mixture boils enough while covered it might boil over (Real experience speaking there, and cleaning off sugar on a burner that looks like it has turned into black glass is not fun… not to mention the smoke.) After removing the lid insert a candy thermometer and cook the sugar syrup to 240 degrees.
While the sugar cooks mix the Cream of Tartar and Egg whites in the mixer on high speed until it reaches soft peaks (This is where if you take the whisk off the mixer and flip it over the meringue that is attached will stand up but droop over a bit.)
Turn the speed to medium and SLOWLY add in the HOT sugar syrup into the mixing bowl, trying to avoid the side of the bowl and the whisk as much as possible. Just one long, slow stream. Once all is added then turn the speed back up to high for about six to eight minutes until the bowl of the mixer comes down closer to room temperature and the meringue is at stiff peaks. (This may take longer depending on your mixer and the temperature of the room you are bringing this to room temperature in.) About a minute or two before it’s done is when I would add the vanilla extract (Or whatever flavor you like) and also a great time to add any food coloring if desired too.
Now you have a wonderful product known as an Italian Meringue that is one of the most stable of all types of Meringue. It is perfect for all sorts of decorative shapes and work and it tastes really good just by itself… and being that it is already cooked (Pouring 240 degree sugar into eggs basically cook them) you can just eat it as is if you want to. It’s tasty and makes a nice dip! Though it’s not going to stay like this forever so we’ll want to have fun with it before then.
For the easiest treat to make from these just take the meringue and add it into a pastry bag with a star tip at the end. Then pipe out small dots of the meringue onto a parchment lined sheet pan and bake in a 200 degree oven for about three to four hours. Why so low for so long? This way you are basically drying out the meringue and setting those wonderful bubbles we have so lovingly thrashed into the egg whites with the mixer. They’ll harden and stay put and the low temperature won’t cause them to brown. If you do want your bites slightly browned you can have the oven at 225 degrees.
Don’t have a pastry bag? Just use a ziploc bag, seal, and cut a corner. To give a slight star shape do a few vertical slits into the cut and that will cause a slight star like effect when piping.
What can you do with meringue bites? Well, eat them for one (Probably my favorite use for them). You can use them as alternative cupcake toppers. Serve them as little snacks with breakfast. Use them as tasty packing materials. Top a lemon meringue pie with lots of little dots instead of just one big mass of meringue. Alternative cake decorations too? Sure, just ice your cake and then before the icing sets gently put little dots all over the outside of the cake into the icing as a rather neat alternate decoration method.
Oh and have I mentioned… Meringue is mostly protein and sugar? So it’s one of the lighter desserts out there for purposes of the waistline too!
To store the bites once fully cooled just place in an airtight container and they’ll generally keep for a couple of weeks.
So enjoy some meringue!