Dear Spring,
You’re a great season. In fact, you’re my favorite season of all. Something about the orange blossoms dotting my neighborhood, and the barely warm evening sun just makes me want to squeeze you with gratitude.
Great job with all the tulips. Excellent work with all the sweet peas. Don’t even get me started on the asparagus…. wow!
There’s just a few things I thought you might consider… just in the interest of being the best season ever, and kicking every other season right in the backside.
First, your color palette. Have you ever considered switching it up? All the pastels remind me of bad baby shower party games. Plus, you’re edgier than that Spring. Show those other seasons what’s what. Have you considered a fresh neon palate? It might work wonders for your image.
Second, can you please work on making purple the new grey this season?
Lastly, every year when you come to town, I end up in the candy aisle at the grocery store buying giant bags of chocolate egg-shaped candies. After I’ve mistakenly make these chocolate goodies a meal, I’m forced the throw the remainder in the trash and pour dish soap on them, keeping myself from sleep-eating them in the middle of the night. While this may seem like more of a personal issue, your attention to this matter would still be much appreciated.
Also Spring, I made you meringues.
Stay Sweet,
Joy the Baker
Meringues are a super easy way to show Spring that you’re glad it’s come to town… or you could write Spring a letter like I did.
With only three egg whites, a bit of granulated sugar and some flavoring, you’ll be able to make a sheet full of three different types of tiny meringues: chocolate, vanilla and raspberry. All you’ll need now is some small, clear gift bags, some pretty ribbon and you’ll have precious Easter gifts on lock-down. Sweet, right!?
This recipe makes vanilla meringues with a dash of vanilla extract, chocolate meringues with unsweetened cocoa powder, and raspberry meringues with dehydrated raspberry powder (made from freeze dried and super ground raspberries). Feel free to play around with almond or coffee meringues using extracts too!
Spring Easter Meringues
- 3 large egg whites
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons dehydrated raspberry powder
- Preheat oven to 175 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper; secure corners with masking tape. Fit three pastry bags with a small open-star tip or round tips (such as Ateco #22). If you don’t have three pastry bags you can use just one bag and wash and dry it between flavors. Set aside.
- Make meringues: Put egg whites and sugar in the heatproof bowl of an electric mixer. Set bowl over a pan of simmering water, and stir gently until sugar has dissolved and mixture is warm to the touch, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Transfer bowl to an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form.
- Divide egg whites between three clean bowls. In one bowl mix in vanilla extract. In second bowl, mix in cocoa powder. In third bowl mix in raspberry powder. Stir all until well combined.
- Fill each bag with separate meringue flavors. Pipe small (3/4-inch-high) star shapes or round shapes (depending on your tip) onto prepared baking sheets.
- Bake cookies until crisp but not brown, about 1 hour 40 minutes. Turn the oven off and let the meringues cool in the oven. Transfer from pans to an airtight container for storage.
{ 70 comments… read them below or add one }
those are precious! i love making meringues and i am always searching for new recipe ideas. i cant wait to try the raspberry.
So beautiful! I wish I could make meringues, but my house is too humid and they just de-tumesce. When my daughter was little I tried to make Caspar (ghost) cookies with her…to no avail.
Wow! Those are beautiful! I need to try making them sometime…my roommate loves them.
These look SO good.. i’m still obsessed with the peppermint meringues from a while back. do you know anywhere to get raspberry powder in smaller quantities? I’m in seattle and don’t know where to look!
and as always, i’m loving your pictures!
pretty :))))
Great idea to write to Spring… I have to do it, too! I’ll asky her (Spring is a female, right?) to come soon and stay a while here in Ireland…I think she thought to stay (some sunny days) but then she decided to move somewhere else and we have cold and wind, again!! The meringues look great and everyone’ll appreciate them very much for sure! Martina
how precious joy…. and i laughed out loud reading your letter… so creative :)
…pour dish soap on them…. I’ll remember this trick (you know, just in case)
Aren’t meringues really sensitive to humidity? I’ve never had the courage to make them.
Those almost look too nice to eat! Beautiful!
dear joy,
you’re photos are so pretty! and you are too funny. can i be you? you know.. just for a day or two. let me know. thanks.
carolyn
So adorable. I’m impressed with how many meringues you can make out of 3 egg whites. I’ll have to do some looking around for this raspberry powder.
I’d never have thought of raspberry flavoured meringues, they look and sound delicious! Now I just need to find some freeze-dried raspberry powder in Scotland…
These are so adorable and I love the natural colors! I’ve been wanting to make meringues. I even have some fresh passionfruit. Do you have any other ideas for passionfruit? If you do, let me know- kimtracy75@hotmail.com. Great post!
I think Spring will appreciate the kind words and the constructive criticism ;) Meringues look perfect. My hubbs is always asking “when are you gonna make meringues for me??”, and I’m saying, “when I get a stand mixer!” … which I’m saving up for now. Soon, my lovely, soooooooon.
I love how the meringues look but it’s bittersweet for me to see anything so cheery and “Spring-y” with the 3 – 4 inches of snow that we got last night in Indiana :( I’m going to skadoo (a reference to Blue’s Clues) to your kitchen, be right there!
Wow these are so pretty and a really cute gift idea. Loved your letter to Spring too – we get lots of cherry blossom and magnolia here in London which is very pretty. Like the idea of the neon colour palatte tho ;)
Simply adorable post and pictures! I need to write to Spring as well to tell her to run the lingering chill outta town asap.
Oh my, that first picture is everything that I want in my life right now! This pictures are soooo pretty—must get to making some meringues tout de suite!!
These are great! Can you tell me what size tips you used to pipe them out with?
I’m impressed. Did you have any trouble with the pointy peaks breaking off?
I had leftover egg whites from a butter cake I baked so I totes made these after reading your post this morning! I added some pastel food coloring instead of raspberry powder and just did vanilla and almond flavor. Thanks for such as great idea for Easter.
Good grief. Ignore that last message — you already posted the tip size!
(Don’t you just love ditzy commenters!)
They’re so pretty… so pretty… but I just do not like the texture of meringues. :( Maybe I should find someone who DOES, and offer to make them as a gift?
Joy, those are adorable!!!!
It’s like seashells in a glass…
Joy,
I usually love your blog but i was a bit disturbed to read that you casually threw perfectly good food in the trash for no reason at all — pouring dish soap on food and throwing it away is not the kindest thing to do, especially in this economic environment — maybe next time give them to someone who is homeless or even pass them on to a friend :) I know its the biggest cliche in the world, but there are poor people out there who would give anything to have some of these chocolate goodies and throwing them away so mindlessly seems irresponsible.
Lovely! I went to Sees last week for my grandmother’s birthday and Easter baskets and now I have way too much Sees Candy in the house for my own good.
I love the idea of the dehydrated powder — I bet you could make your own with some of the freeze dried fruits at Trader Joe’s. Rambutan Meringues?
How cute. These look so nice and must be delicious too :)
My letter would simply read “Dear Spring, please just do me a favor and show up. That snow you dropped yesterday, not funny. At all.”
I must try these. I have to admit to only having those nasty store bought kind. I know I would like these ’cause my failed attempts at pavlovas have had me thinking, hey these would be delish in miniature form.
Speaking of which, do me a favor sometime and do a foolproof pavlova. I have always wasted a ton of egg whites to find a pancake in the oven.
these would be perfect for easter treats.
Looks incredible.
What a lovely spring-time treat! Your meringues are wonderful!!!
Do you know this poem by e. e. cummings?
in just-
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it’s
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee
These look so very very tempting, and I can resist anything but… My local bulk food store sells freeze-dried strawberries. I’m going to powder some of those & see if they make an acceptable substitute for the raspberry.
Oh, these make me so happy! Much more delicious than hard boiled eggs. I’ll take my easter eggs as whites, mixed with sugar and raspberry, and made into sweet meringues, please!
I love meringues! Can I have one now…pleeasse…
Okay…maybe this is a dumb question, but could you shortcut your way through these with Meringue powder? How would that affect the flavor/texture etc.?
I’ve never made meringues, and I am only an intermediate baker I guess – but I’ve been working crazy hours lately…so the shortcut would help.
So, so cute, Joy. Perfect for Easter!
Beautiful pictures, as always. I love meringues, and you’ve been able to make them look more ethereal than they already are. Never heard of the powder before. I will be on the lookout for that!
These are so beautiful. I have some egg whites that need a purpose in life – thanks for the great post.
These are so beautiful. I really love the placemat you used in your first photo – the colors work so well with the meringues!
It’s funny, I made some last afternoon… not sure that mine are as beautiful as yours but they seemed to be appriciated ! Anyway, I don’t have the same recipe so next time i’ll try yours, it seems to be really good and your photos are really really beautiful ! Thank you for blogging Joy, it’s always a pleasure to read something from you !
*head explodie*
Those are ridiculously adorable.
Love the colors and different textures. Perfect for Spring and Easter!
Yay Spring! These meringues look totally fabulous. I hear you about the candy aisle by the way. Especially when all the Easter candy goes on sale…dangerous.
these are utterly gorgeous, i love the mix of colors and shapes!
mmm .. so pretty :-)!
Your ode to spring reminds me of William Carlos William. And I love that e.e. cummings poem too. He is my all time favorite.
Adorable! I love meringues.
I love these! They colors are just amazing!
Your meringues are much prettier than my first attpemt. Check them out (with PEEP).
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