“These meringues are light, low-fat and completely festive! Perfect for any baby or bridal shower, you can change these meringues up with raspberry or almond extracts, different colors, or my favorite, peppermint extract at the holidays. Make these on a dry, non-humid day for the best results. You can also melt white chocolate or pink candy melts and use it as a ‘glue’ to sandwich 2 of these kisses together to make unique meringue sandwiches.”
– Kristianne Descher, Verbena Pastries
Another great place to tie in your pink and blue is with desserts. We were given a fabulous recipe from this month’s sponsor Kristianne Descher at Verbena Pastries for these adorable and delicious Pink Meringue Kisses. Other sweet options include making a batch with blue food coloring (instead of pink) for your blue dessert, or offering sugar cookies with blue icing. Cupcakes also really lend themselves to this, and you can alternate between pink and blue frosting.
Pink Meringue ‘Kisses’
Ingredients:
- 4 egg whites (at room temperature)
- ½ teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Natural pink food coloring
Extra Materials:
- Disposable piping bag
- Plain ½ inch piping tip
- Stand mixer with a whisk attachment (or a hand mixer can be used)
Method:
- Preheat your oven to 225 degrees
- Line baking sheets with foil and lightly spray foil with pan spray
- In a stand mixer using the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar until foamy. Gradually add the sugar and continue to whisk until the whites are stiff but not dry. *When you remove the whisk, the egg whites should completely hold their shape at a stiff peak
- Beat in extract and slowly add in the food coloring until the desired color is reached
- Snip a small opening big enough for your piping tip in your piping bag. Place your piping tip inside and spoon your stiff meringue into the bag
- Pipe the meringues by placing the piping bag straight above the baking sheet, almost touching the baking sheet. Apply pressure and gently squeeze the meringue out of the tip to make a 1” round (shaping the bottom of the meringue) and then stop squeezing and gently pull up the piping bag making a classic ‘Hershey’s Kiss’ top. Pipe the meringues about 1 inch apart on your lined baking sheets
- Bake meringues until dry and almost crisp but not yet colored, about 1 hour. Turn the oven off and leave the trays in the oven for 1 hour, as they will continue to dry out
- When cooled, carefully remove them from the baking sheet. Store airtight. Meringues keep for 3 days in an air-tight container.
Enjoy!
Kristi
Verbena Pastries is a joint venture of catering, special occasion cakes and gourmet confections by Pastry Chefs Kristianne Descher and Katrin Biemann. Katrin Biemann graduated from the Le Cordon Bleu Patisserie Program in Los Angeles, CA. Born in Germany, she was raised in England and the United States. Katrin creates her pastries with a decidedly European perspective, insisting upon fresh, high quality ingredients. Katrin worked in Italy, just outside of Rome, as a pastry chef, as well as in Beverly Hills for Thomas Keller’s Bouchon, which is where she met Kristianne. She currently lives in Palm Springs, CA and is the Executive Pastry Chef at The Parker Palm Springs. Kristianne (Pak) Descher was born and raised in Los Angeles. She graduated from Cal State Northridge in 2003 with a degree in Cinema, Television Arts, Media Management and then attended Le Cordon Bleu specializing in Culinary Arts. Influenced by Asian-fusion cuisine, Kristianne won the prestigious grand prize title of San Pellegrino’s “Almost Famous Chef” Competition in 2008, which ranks the best culinary students in the United States and Canada, in which she toured the U.S. representing San Pellegrino and Nestle Waters. Her primary focus has been on pastries in the past 6-years, specializing in catering, wedding and special occasion cakes as well as gluten-free and vegan pastries. Kristianne, her husband and her son live in Los Angeles with their dogs Sammie and Daisy.