Peppermint Meringues

Tonight I had the burning urge to wash a bunch of dishes, so I decided to open my cookbook and try out a new recipe. I ended up going with a batch of peppermint meringues. They were time consuming, a little tedious, and yes... messy. Goal complete. On the up side they turned out really cute and filled with Christmasy-minty-airy goodness :)

Ingredients
4 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp peppermint extract  **see note**
Red and Green food coloring

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 225 degrees, and line cookie sheets with wax paper
2) In a large bowl, whisk/beat egg whites and cream of tartar at high speed until soft peaks form when beaters are lifted.
3) Gradually add the powdered sugar and extract, then continue to beat until meringue stands in stiff glossy peaks
4) Here comes the fun part... half the meringue and transfer into two bowls. Use the food coloring to tint one of the bowls a pale red and the other a pale green.
5) Spoon each of the colored meringues into separate ziplock bags and cut off the tip of one corner on each bag.
6) Fit a large decorating/piping bag with a large round tip. Then place the bag in a glass and fold the bag over the edge of the glass to stabalize.
7) Simultaneously squeeze the red and green filled bags into the decorating/piping bag to fill.
8) Pipe 2inch round meringues onto the prepared cookie sheets, leaving about an inch between each one.
9) Bake at 225 for 2 hours, then shut off oven and leave meringues in oven for another half hour to dry. If you have more meringue to bake, turn oven back up to 225 and repeat process.
10) Cool completely before taking off pan. They should be dry, light, airy, and crispy.

**Note- make sure you use a peppermint extract that does not contain oil, or it will flatten/deflate the meringue.

Decorating/piping bag folded over a cup with the 2 colors of meringue filling the inside.

piped meringues ready to bake

finished product :)