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)