Halloween Series...Day 4 MERINGUE BONES AND GHOSTS COOKIES

Jennifer of Cup a Dee Cakes Blog

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and are ready for

another week of fantastic Halloween ideas.

I am so happy to present you my blog friend Jennifer. She is a very talented Cake Artist and the owner of Cup a Dee Cakes LLC. I have been admiring all the cakes she makes for quite some time, and I absolutely love her buttercream cakes. Maybe, one day,

 in a hundred years, I can make a buttercream cake like she does.

Jennifer recently attended the Food Blog Forum in Atlanta where she had the opportunity to meet and learn from awesome food bloggers. Please visit her site and take a look at her beautiful cakes and if you

are in the Tunnel Hill, GA  area,

do not hesitate to contact her for your next cake.

Jennifer presenting...

Hi Folks!  I'm Jenniffer from the Cup a Dee Cakes blog!  I was so honored and excited when Kathia asked me to participate in her Halloween mini-series.  Besides Christmas, Halloween is our favorite holiday.  Today we're going to be making Meringue Bones and Ghosts cookies.

MERINGUE BONES AND GHOSTS COOKIES

Meringue cookies are easy to make, but I think people are afraid of them because they appear complicated.  They are very inexpensive to make, and you can pipe them into almost any shape.  Also, they are gluten and peanut free, so there's a few more people that can enjoy them!

Let's start with the ingredient list.  Better get out your pencils! LOL!

INGREDIENTS
6 large egg whites
1 1/2 cups sugar

DIRECTIONS
   1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees. Put egg whites and sugar in the heatproof bowl. Set bowl over a pan of simmering water; whisk constantly until sugar is dissolved and mixture feels warm to the touch, about 5 minutes or until the mixture reaches 130 degrees.

   2. Transfer the hot mixture to your mixer with the whisk attachment.  Beat on high speed until very stiff peaks form, about 8 minutes.  The great thing about meringues is unlike plain egg whites or cream, it is almost impossible to overbeat or break it.

   3. Transfer meringue to a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch plain round tip, I used a Wilton #1A.  You can fill a baggie and snip off a corner for piping.  Pipe bone shapes, each 5 to 6 inches long, onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper.  For ghost shapes, start at the base with heavy pressure and lessen the pressure as you near the top of the ghost.  If you are unhappy with your shapes, just scoop them back up and re-pipe them! 

Bake until crisp throughout, about 90 minutes. Test one meringue to see if it is dry throughout.  If not, let it cook a little longer.  One they finish, turn off the oven and place a wooden spoon in the oven door so that it is still cracked a little.  Leave the meringue cookies in the oven.  This will allow the meringue to cool very slowly and prevent them from cracking.  Some of them will probably still crack though!  It will just make them spookier!

Once they are thoroughly cooled, use an edible image marker or gel color and small brush to draw faces on the ghosts.  This is what you end up with!

Thanks, Kathia!  I hope your readers enjoy making these as much as I did!  Let's do this again sometime!!