mondays are for baking

Okay, as I am sure you have figured out by now, in my world any day is for baking. School closed last week for the month of August, but most of the teachers still come to school every day and the kids are always there, so I thought it would be fun to take this week and bake with some of the kids.

The teachers don’t often bake and the kids always love any opportunity to bake, so everyone thinks that a baking week is a good thing.

Today we made meringues.

 

It was a lot of fun watching the teachers reaction to the egg whites transformation. They were so surprised that the runny whites turned into fluffy mounds of deliciousness.

Even though it is hard to tell from this picture, the teachers enjoyed every bite of the meringue (so much so that I was only able to take this picture as the meringues disappeared so quickly).

And the kids here are so great that they wash the dishes (they actually WANT to wash the dishes).

Ingredients
3 eggs whites
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
¾ cup icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 95C or 200F.

Whip the egg whites (on med-low speed) until they become frothy. Add the cream of tartar and continue to beat eggs until soft peaks form. Once the egg whites have reached a soft peak stage, slowly add the sugar and beat until hard peaks form and the whites are slightly glossy. Then add the vanilla and mix until incorporated.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Place spoonfuls of the mixture in rows on the parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake for 90 - 105 minutes until meringues are crisp on the outside. Turn off the oven, open it a crack and leave the meringues in the oven for a few hours (or overnight) to dry. (However, if you are impatient like we were, you can eat them sooner than that and they will be slightly chewy).

Makes 15

Please Note: the egg whites will not mix properly if there is any yolk in the mixture.