L'atelier sucré d' Eleni: Meringues

One of the most delicate little treats and I believe one of the most interesting "sweets tools" that you can make to decorate, to eat or to offer as a gift.
All you have to do is follow correctly the instructions to make. Dealing with eggs heating is not difficult but sometimes it needs a little practice so that you have experience everytime you prepare meringues.

There are different types of meringues in pastry: french, swiss and italian. The simpler and easier version of them is the french one which I am about to describe you today. So we make meringues in the "french"recipe and we use colors to make the difference.

Ingredients:
100 gr eggs white room temperature
100 gr sugar
100 gr powdered sugar
1 tea spoon of corn flour
Paste colors of your taste (instead you can use as well liquid colors in drops)

Put in your mixer the eggs and the crystal sugar, In another bowl sift the powdered sugar and corn flour and put aside, The reason we use corn flour is to ensure stability in the final result and let our meringues to stand still and have their shape instead of falling when we place them in our dish to the oven.

Beat the eggs to the mixer until their volume is doubled and the whole mixture is absolutely white has a thick texture and forms "bird noses" while rolling up the stirrer,

Important tips at this stage: Resulting the above will not appear directly in your mixture. Be cautious. At the beginning, while mixing it will look like a soap melt texture but then little by little it will turn to the above. If your want to be 100% sure that your meringue is ready you turn upside down your mixer bowl. If the whole mix inside stands stuck and doesn't fall at all then it is ready to use.

Add the sifted sugar with the corn flour to your eggs, little by little, mixing gently with a silicone spatula. Attention! Not vigorously, gently with cyclic moves from the bottom to the top so that the existing "air"in the mixture remains and is not lost. Otherwise the result you will get will not be the one we want because the mixture will start losing its volume.

French meringue must be thick without flowing at all

Preheat the oven to 100 degrees (Celcius) /resistances.
Now we are ready to create: All you need is colors,icing bag, nozzles that you like and inspiration to make little designs.
With the french meringue you can make little Christmas trees, combinations with different colors and nozzles.
Split your mixtures to different bowls and with a toothpick add colors. If you have paste color just sink once or twice in the color and add to your mixture. If you have liquid color you can add 2-3 drops. For tense result with colors add more (make sure you don't exaggerate). Mix again with your silicone spatula gently to keep the mixture as it must be without losing volume.

Put in a plane baking dish some baking paper to cover its surface and with your icing bag and nozzles start making little and different designs. Before putting in the oven leave it in room temperature for almost a quarter. This helps the meringues to keep their shape and remain shiny as well.

Bake the meringues for 1 and half hour. Leave them approximately for more than 2 hours off the oven so that they become dry. Then we keep them in airtight bowls in order to reserve for many days.

Tips:

Always bake in resistances, otherwise your meringues risk to lose their shape since they tent to raise.
In case you wish to have chocolate ones add to this recipe 20 gr cocoa powder to be mixed as above described sifted with the powered sugar and the corn flour.
Never put meringues in the fridge. That type of treats doesn't like fridge especially moisture. If you put them on the fridge you seriously risk to destroy their texture and shape.