These Valentine's day Meringue Cookies are super soft and have a fun visual aesthetic. Pink and white swirls and sprinkles really make them festive!
Prep Time20 minutesmins
Cook Time1 hourhr
Total Time1 hourhr20 minutesmins
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Servings: 24servings
Author: Eating Gluten and Dairy Free
Ingredients
3egg whites
⅛teaspooncream of tartarsuggestions in post
½teaspoonvanilla extractsee suggestions in post
¾cupgranulated white sugar
Red food dyesee suggestions in post
Red white, and pink sprinklessee suggestions in post
Instructions
Gather up all of the ingredients and preheat the oven to 200F.
Next up, take your baking sheet or cookie sheet and line it with parchment paper. Set aside until you need it later.
Add the egg whites and cream of tartar together in a bowl. Use a whisk hand mixer on medium speed to whip and make the egg whites frothy.
Once frothy, continue to mix and slowly add in the sugar. This is easiest to do by adding either one teaspoon of sugar at a time or with a slow continuous pour.
Once you have added all the sugar, add in the vanilla extract and blendat medium-high speed for about 10 minutes until you have a marshmallow-like soft meringue that barely holds soft peaks.
Split this meringue mixture in half. Use the dye to color one half with red food dye or gel food coloring and leave the rest white.
Transfer the two colors into separate piping bags and cut the corners. Carefully, place both piping bags in a third empty piping bag to create a blend of the two colors. You could use a disposable piping bag for this.
On the prepared parchment baking sheet, pipe out a heart shape and top with gluten and dairy free sprinkles. Continue until you have no meringue mixture left.
Place hearts in the oven to bake for 1 hour.
Remove from the oven and let them cool. You should have a firm, but a soft-to-bite meringue heart shaped cookie.
Notes
Crack the eggs one at a time separately to ensure no egg yolk is accidentally added. That will ruin the integrity of the meringue.
This meringue is different from the regular meringue cookies, which would create a fluffy crunchy texture because you want stiff peaks, whereas this one creates a fluffy soft, and chewy texture. This is due to the length of beating the egg white and sugar mixture.
Be careful not to open to the oven door during the cooking process as this will affect the texture.
You could use a stand mixer for this. Add the ingredients as suggested above into the bowl of a stand mixer and use the whisk attachment. Keep the speeds as suggested in the method.
If you struggle to get a heart shape then why not use a heart-shaped cookie cutter? Pipe inside the cookie cutter and then remove it. Simple!