Maple Sugar Meringues

Every year my program has holiday parties and often we bring dishes to share with each other. A few years ago I started making these meringues specifically for a coworker with several food allergies. It took a while to research ingredients and come up with something that would be allergy-friendly, but this recipe was a home run. Meringues can be a little time consuming due to their long baking and resting time, but aside from that, they are super easy to make.

Meringue cookies are super versatile and can be adjusted to meet your flavor preferences. Meringues often use white sugar, boiled sugar syrup, and flavor extracts. Lemon juice or vinegar can be used in lieu of Cream of Tartar. The salt in this recipe acts as a binding agent, but can be substituted for gelatin or cornstarch. Meringue can be soft or hard, used to top pies, thicken mousses, or baked into sweet airy confections.

3/4 cup + 2 tbs Maple Sugar (plus more for topping, optional)

1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar

1/4 tsp Sea Salt

3 Egg Whites

*Note: this recipe can be easily increased or decreased. As written, the recipe makes about 40 meringues.

Preheat oven to 200-225 and line a couple cookie sheets parchment or tinfoil. You want to bake all your meringues at one time. Separate three eggs, taking care not to get any yolk into the whites. The yolk you can save for something else, the whites you need for this recipe.

A stand or hand mixer will be the easiest way to complete this next step. Add egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt to a bowl and mix until soft peaks form. This usually occurs in about a minute.

When the soft peaks have formed, slowly add in the maple sugar. Continue beating the mixture until it is white and stiff.

Drop small spoonfuls of the maple sugar meringue onto your baking sheet. I really don't know what meringues are supposed to look like, for some reason I imagine a Hershey Kiss so that's what I try to recreate.

Top with maple sugar if desired and then bake for about 2 hours. At the end of the 2 hours, turn the heat off but let the meringues stay put for another 3+ hours. This helps them get their crunchiness.

The third picture shows the meringues after I removed them from spending the night in the oven.

If you're not eating the meringues right away, allow them to cool to room temp. before storing them in an airtight container.