Christmas Merengue Treats

Serve them with coffee, or as a "side" to any cream dessert. Perfect for gluten free friends, they keep very well for days in a tin lined with baking paper. I use food colouring and coloured sugar bits, but you can also use cocoa powder and a chocolate cover to make them super extra special.

Ingredients (makes 6):

(It actually makes 7, but you'll use the extra one for tasting, so it doesn't count)

• 1 egg - kept at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours

• 70 gr icing sugar

• The tip of a teaspoon of vanilla paste

• Food colouring

• Coloured sugar bits to decorate

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven at 150 degrees C (fan)

• Separate the white from the yolk into a super clean glass bowl, ensuring that no yolk gets there, and that there are no egg shell bits

• Using an electric whisk, whip it up until nice, white and very foamy

• Start adding the sugar, one tablespoon at a time, while continuing to wisk

• Continue to wish and finish adding the sugar, it will have to become glossy and very stiff

• Add the vanilla paste and the food colouring

• Put it into a piping bag with a star shaped tip

• Squeeze out onto 1-2cm diameter blobs onto an oven tray lined with baking paper

• Decorate the merengues with your coloured sugar bits

• Put the tray in the oven, reduce the temperature to 75-80 degrees C, and leave the door a little open

• Cook for 3 hours, checking they don't brown (they really cannot brown! Lower the temperature if they do)

• Basically they need to dry out, rather than cook

• Turn the oven off, open the door but leave the tray there

• Wait until they reach room temperature

• Once cold, remove them and place onto either a serving dish or a tin lined with baking paper (if you're doing this, close the tin carefully as you don't want air to get in there. They'll keep for up to a week)