RECIPE: French Meringue Kisses + French Meringue Tips

Meringue is a light and airy mixture of stiffly whipped up egg whites and sugar. It can be used as a basis for soufflé, or baked into meringue cookies. French meringue is just one of three types of meringues, the other two being Swiss and Italian meringue. If you’d like to learn more about the differences between the three types of meringues, we have just the article for you!

Read: The Difference Between French, Italian, & Swiss Meringue And How To Make Them

This recipe is for French meringue kisses, one of the easiest cookies you can make, because it only requires two ingredients! It’s sweet, crispy on the outside, and chewy in the middle. If you have a piping bag and a star piping tip at home, you can make these lovely meringue kisses!

French Meringue Kisses 

Ingredients

135g egg whites

270g granulated fine sugar

1x piping bag

1x star piping tip

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 95°C, with the oven rack placed in the middle. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Prepare your piping bag by snipping off the tip, and placing your star piping tip into the bag, fitting snugly at the tip.
   
2. In a clean (free of oil and grease) glass, copper, or metal bowl, whip up your egg whites on medium speed until foamy. We recommend using a mixer with the whisk attachment for this. Make sure your equipment is also free from oil and grease.
   
3. Once foamy, slowly and gradually add sugar while whipping your egg whites on medium-high speed until your mixture looks glossy and develops stiff peaks. Check for stiff peaks by lifting the whisk attachment out of your mixture - if the mixture has a vertical peak that doesn’t collapse (the tip might arc slightly), the egg whites are ready.
   
4. Transfer mixture into the prepared piping bag, and pipe the meringue out onto the lined baking sheet.
   
5. Place the meringues in the oven and keep the oven door slightly open (you can use a wooden spoon to keep it ajar). Bake for 2.5-3 hours, or until the meringues are dry and set. Allow your cookies to cool completely before storing in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Tips when making French Meringue

• Ensure that your mixing bowl is clean and free of oil & grease. Eggs white are 90% water and 10% protein. When we whip egg whites, the proteins are denature (unfold) and take up more space. The long chains of amino acids (which make up proteins) bind with air and water, creating air bubbles, giving volume to the mixture. The fat from the oil & grease can cause the unfolded proteins to cling on to them, instead of the air bubbles, disrupting the meringue formation and stabilisation process.
  
  
• Do not get egg yolk into the mixture. The fat from egg yolks will prevent the egg whites from forming the protein-based foam that is so important in creating a meringue. We suggest cracking your eggs on a countertop, so that there is less risk of the egg yolk being broken. Begin by separating each egg white into a small bowl, then adding the whites to another bowl with the rest of the whites. That way, you don’t ruin your whole batch of whites even if you mess up an egg.
  
  
• Sprinkle in the sugar very slowly and gradually. It’s important that your sugar completely dissolves in the egg whites during the process of whipping them up, otherwise, the undissolved sugars will melt in the oven and form a sugar syrup that leaks from your meringue.
  

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