Meringue Drops

It's Halloween tom and I wanted to make something for that occassion. I found a lot of beautiful recipes but I thought this was the easiest and fun for the young ones. This recipe is from joyofbaking.com . My pictures didnt come out that well. But it tasted very nice. My little one really enjoyed it after all its like a mount of sugar!!!
You do need a little patience to make this or rather eat it.It takes a lot of time to get into your hand to eat it!
I am going to give the original recipe here as I think that would make the meringue perfect
The only changes I made in the recipe is that I used 1/4 tsp white vinegar instead of the cream of tartar. I read somewhere that we can use vinegar as a substitute for tartar. Also for the eyes I used some dark red food color and applied it using the tip of a thin wooden skewer. I also added the color to half the batch to get that pinkish color [just experimenting].

 

 

 

INGREDIENTS

• 4 large egg whites
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar { I used white vinegar}
• 1 cup superfine or caster sugar (if you don't have superfine sugar simply take 1 cup granulated white sugar and process it for about 30 seconds in a food processor)
• 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• Candy eyes or chocolate chip. or like me use food color.

 

 

METHOD:

• Preheat oven to 200 degrees F (105 degrees C) and place the rack in the center of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Have ready a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2 inch (1.25 cm) plain tip. {I used a ziploc bag and cut the ends of.since i am not into cake decorating didnt have the other one} 
• In the bowl of your electric mixer, with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on low-medium speed until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and continue to beat the whites until they hold soft peaks. Add the sugar, a little at a time, and continue to beat until the meringue holds very stiff peaks. Beat in the vanilla extract.
• It took me probably 20 minutes on a hand mixer. In the begining when i tried to make peaks its just went back to the original shape but gradually it did form the peaks 
• To get the pinkish color add 1/4 tsp of dark red food color to half the batch.
• Transfer the meringue to the pastry bag and, holding the bag perpendicular to the baking sheet, pipe, with even pressure, 2 inch (5 cm) high mounds of meringue. Carefully press two candy eyes or two miniature chocolate chips into each meringue ghost.
• Bake the meringues for approximately 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 hours or until they are dry and crisp to the touch and easily separate from the parchment paper.
• Turn off the oven, open the door, and leave the meringues in the oven to finish drying several hours, or even overnight.

 

MERINGUE GHOSTS