Almond Meringues

Almond Meringues

As some of you may know I made angel wing cookies last week and ended up using 32 egg yolks for them. I should have used 16 egg yolks, still a hefty number, but because of a mistake I needed 32 egg yolks and I ended up with 32 egg whites leftover. I can’t stand wasting food so I started using the egg whites up in a number of ways. I had a couple of egg white omelets. I also made an angel food cake- I’ll post that recipe later. I was doing a lot of cake baking and I subbed out some of the  whole eggs with egg whites. If I needed 4 whole eggs in a recipe I’d add 3 whole eggs and a quarter cup of egg whites for the 4th egg. Worked fine. I had 1/2 cup of egg whites left so I decided to make meringues. Meringues are a sweet treat made from egg whites, sugar and flavoring. Gluten free, too, if that is important to you. I didn’t want plain meringues so I dressed them up a little with almonds. Here is what I did.

Almond Meringues

1/2 c. egg whites- about 2-3 eggs- room temp.

1 t. cream of tartar

1/2 c. sugar

1 t. almond extract

1/2 c. ground almonds

Preheat oven to 250. Beat egg whites until foamy and add the cream of tartar. Beat until stiff peaks form. Add the sugar slowly- I do it a tablespoonful at a time-with the mixer running. Beat in the flavoring then fold in the nuts. Line baking sheets with parchment paper, foil or use silicone liners. Place egg mixture in a piping bag and make little meringues  on the baking sheet. They can be close together as they don’t grow at all when baked. Place baking sheets in oven and bake for 30 minutes. Turn down heat to 200 and bake one additional hour. Turn off oven and leave in oven for 5-6 hours longer. Don’t open the door to peak!! I like to make these at night and just leave them in the oven overnight. Remove from oven and carefully remove from baking sheets. These are light as a feather and melt in your mouth. Makes several dozen.