Halloween Meringues

Meringues are light, sweet puffs of sugar and egg whites.  They're super airy with a crispy outside and a light, puffy inside that almost dissolves like cotton candy.  They typically show up in specialty groceries at Easter and Christmas but it turns out they also dress up pretty nicely as cute pumpkins for Halloween.  All it takes is decorating them with sprinkles and adding a stem.  Here are some fun ways to use them right now.

As cupcake toppers~

or on top of cocoa~

or simply wrapped in treat bags to share~

I couldn't find any meringues in my area--even Cost Plus--so I made my own.  I'd made them once before and knew it was easy.  The problem was, I wanted them to be the size of little plums but I couldn't find my big piping tip.  Hmmm, maybe I don't have a big piping tip . . . ?  I didn't want to make a bunch of little mini meringues--ohmygosh I'd have so many!  In the end, I was really tickled with the little ones!  Here's a baking stone covered with them.  Whatever size you pipe them out as is the size they stay so you can cram a lot onto one sheet. I love how smooth and bright white they are.

Like I said, meringues are super easy to make.  It's a matter of whipping sugar and egg whites until they're super stiff, then piping them out of a decorating bag the way you like them or dolloping them into a mound, and then baking them until they're completely dried out.  Whip, pipe, bake. 

To turn them into pumpkins:
1.  Using a paint brush, paint the low sections with corn syrup.
2.  Spoon sprinkles over the top to stick onto the corn syrup.
3.  Cut a tiny piece of green fruit roll up and roll it into a stem.
4.  Attach the stem onto the top with another drop of corn syrup.

Mmmmm, yummy and fun. That's a good combination. 

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