Meringue's Round 2. Slight Improvement.

Alright! SO round two of Meringue making went slightly better then round one, however I would still classify it as a bit of a baking failure. However, in the spirit of full disclosure I thought I would share my findings with my faithful blog readers anyway....

After my first meringue failure, which was REALLY a failure, no cookies at all were produced, I did a little research on what went wrong. After a few simple corrections (room temp eggs, not cold eggs, and a very careful separating process for the egg whites) the consistency of the Meringues was much improved.

I used a VERY simple recipe I got off of allrecipes.com. 3 egg whites at room temperature. 1 cup of sugar. 3/4 tsp of cardamom. That's it. 3 ingredients. That's my kind of cookie.

I also took the opportunity to break in one of my new bridal-shower appliances (Thanks Collins family!) The Cuisinart smart stick blender. This little contraption comes with a whisk attachment. Power tool meets Whisk. So cool.

First up, beat the egg whites until foamy.

Then slowly add in your sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form. Then fold in the cardamom. I think this is where I went wrong. Impatient little me decided my peaks were stiff enough when really, this was not the case. As a result my meringue didn't really hold its form well on the baking sheet. They weren't pancake flat either though, so we're getting closer....

Bake at 275 for about 45 minutes. The recipe said 60-90 minutes, but they started to get burny-brown after 50. I think this over-cooking was also partially responsible for the final product that wasn't quite up to snuff.

Tada! Instead of the pretty piped swirlies I was going for, I got meringue blobs. Boo. The consistency was decent, but the cardamom was WAY too much. I think for round three (which WILL be a success I promise!) I'll stick so something simple to flavor the meringue, like vanilla extract.

I only made a few, as I also managed to dump half of the batter onto my kitchen counter while attempting to transfer it to a piping bag. Sigh. All in all, it was a bit of a rough experiment. I think I will try something with a high probability of success my next go 'round to recover a bit of my baking momentum. Then I'll try to tackle these bad boys again.

Happy Baking!