Shiuli Meringue Cookies.... hand whisked

Meringue Cookies have been in my to-do wish list forever. but i do not have an  electric mixer, with the whisk attachment or a electric hand mixer so i had been putting it off  FOREVER.... However, Wednesday night i made whipped up the eggylicious Zabaglione and had three egg whites in hand so i  thought Macaroons perhaps... and as soon as a sat on the laptop in search of a pretty French Macaroon recipe, Priya's rose meringue cookies caught my eye.. and then there was no looking back... 

it took me 2 hours of whisking and 1 1/2 hour of waiting till i saw my dainty creations and literally jumped in joy... just before my boys were home, i set a small bowl of my Shiuli (Night Jasmine) Meringue Cookies on the dining table... and Oh my, didn't the sight delight the two.. while Mr. MN kept remarking on how gorgeous they were, the little one kept asking for more..  the cookies were light, airy, sweet and crisp just as they should have been and seemed to melt in the mouth. and at the end of the day all i felt was

"YAAY !! I did it !!"

now my Night Jasmine Cookies and what i did....

Recipe Adapted from Joy of Baking

ingredients

3 egg whites, at room temperature

3/4 cup superfine sugar (I ground my granulated sugar in the coffee grinder)

1 pinch of salt

2 drops of lemon juice

Wilton's Ready to Use Decorating Icing Tub - Orange Color

what i did.

before i tell you what i did, i want to refer you to a couple of sites which share very useful tips on the do's and don'ts  that helped me make my hand-whisked-meringue-venture a success. 

• How to Beat Egg Whites Without an Electric Mixer
• The biggest Mistakes While Making Meringue

i read all the points in both the sites very thoroughly before i a deep breath and set out about my business. so you are planning to hand-whisk too... i suggest you read those too.... now over to what i did...

first i preheated the oven to 200 degree F , lined two baking sheets with parchment paper and made a pastry bag with a Wilton's 104 tip out of a Ziploc plastic bag following the tutorial here.

though i had intended to make the cookies with the leftover egg whites, i ended up cracking 3 new eggs, the whites from which i kept in a pyrex glass bowl and yolks in a separate bowl. (why ?? because one of the warnings said that even a spec of the yolk could ruin the meringue. and another said that spotlessly clean metal or glass mixing bowls are best for yielding voluminous beaten egg whites. ). then with my wire whisk i began whisking the egg whites in quick circular motion.

after beating for about a minute, i added a pinch of salt and continued whisking for another minute until the egg whites became foamy. at this point i squeezed in 2 drops of lemon juice and continued whisking for another 9-10 minutes until the desired stiff peaks appeared.

then i began adding the ground sugar 1 spoon at a time... whisking all along. i managed to incorporate the whole sugar and the vanilla extract into the beaten eggs in the next 25 minutes... at this point the batter looked like this and  i thought it was done...

but when i tried to spoon out the batter into the prepared sheet i realized that batter was far too runny for any shape. so i sat back in a comfortable chair, switched on the TV and began whisking again...

for the next one hour i whisked and whisked and whisked till the batter was glossy and stiff enough so that i could shape out designs with the whisk which did not dissolve easily. i.e. till the batter looked like this..

it seemed like the batter was now ready. so i piped in my dainty flowers into the first prepared sheet and

put it in the oven while i  piped out some bigger roses into the second prepared sheet and put that in the oven a few minutes later.  1 1/2 hour later i was more than thrilled to pull out my first batch of perfect meringues from the oven ...

but i got so excited and engrossed in the first batch that i let my roses stay in the heat a little longer than they would have liked... so when i took out my rose meringues from the oven ... some of them were cracked slightly.....

nevertheless i thought they looked pretty...

so in any case i was happy. they weren't  a complete disaster. they tasted good... they just fell a little short of creating the perfect bouquet.... next time perhaps....

but for now..

Happy Baking and Happy Woman's Day !! Some more posts coming right away... stick around and please drop in a line if you are here. I'll love to hear from you.

quote by Evita Peron