Rainbow Meringue Kisses

I thought it was about time I wrote a blog, so here it is! Of course it is baking related, and as it is Pride month, I whipped up some rainbow striped meringue kisses (or unicorn poop if you prefer) inspired by the Meringue Girls and wanted to share the recipe with you. I had an amazing response to my Instagram stories, and the majority of answers were that you wanted to see gluten free recipes…so here is my first one! The kisses only involve 2 ingredients, egg whites and sugar, plus a little bit of food colouring so they are nice and easy. They are squishy on the inside so really tasty on their own, or they can be used to decorate cakes, cupcakes or smashed up in an Eton mess. They’d also be a great accompaniment to the Violet cake kit to complete a unicorn themed party!

The trick is to get the mixture really fluffy and marshmallowy. If you can’t hold the bowl upside down over your head without it falling out, then it’s not ready! I’ll be honest, only an electric freestanding or hand held mixer will do the job for this, unless you’ve got some kind of Popeye muscles…which I do not. 

Ingredients:

150g caster sugar
75g free range egg whites (approx. 2 medium eggs)

Makes approx. 40 kisses depending on size.

Equipment:

Electric whisk
Piping bag
Gel food colouring
Baking tray
Greaseproof paper

Method:

Preheat your oven to 200c. 

Line a small baking tray with greaseproof paper, pour on the caster sugar in a little mound and heat it in the oven for 5-6 minutes, until it just begins to melt around the edge. Meanwhile, pour the egg whites into a freestanding or hand held mixer with whisk attachment and whisk them slowly, allowing small bubbles to form, then increase the speed until the egg whites form stiff peaks.

When the sugar is ready, take it out and turn the oven down to 100c, leave the door open for a few minutes to help speed this up. Turn your mixer up to full speed and slowly spoon the hot sugar into the egg white mixture, making sure it comes back up to stiff peaks after each addition. Once you have added all the sugar, keep whisking on full speed until you have a smooth and glossy mixture. Continue to whisk for another 5 minutes or until all sugar has been incorporated and it still forms stiff peaks. Rub a bit of the mixture between your fingers; if you can still feel grains of sugar you need to continue mixing. 

To form rainbow stripes on your kisses, you need to add coloured stripes to the inside of your piping bag. PME gel colours are all natural and gluten free. Choose 4-5 colours (no more or they all merge together) and squeeze 2-3 drops inside the top of the bag and let it dribble down into the tip of the bag. Repeat for all of your colours, spacing evenly. 

Line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper. Carefully spoon your meringue mixture into the piping bag, then cut the tip off the end. This should roughly be about the same size as a one pound coin, finally squeeze the mixture to the end of the bag. It helps to blob a little bit of mixture underneath each corner of the greaseproof paper to help it stick to the tray. This will stop the sheet from lifting when you are trying to pipe your kisses. When you are ready, pipe out each kiss by holding the bag directly above the baking tray and squeeze from a 2cm height until you are happy with the size, then swiftly pull the bag away to cause the peaks. Space approx. 2cm apart. 

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the meringues come off the greaseproof paper easily. 

The kisses will cool down fairly quickly, and if not being used immediately must be stored in an airtight container to stop them going soggy. They will keep for up to two weeks.