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Holiday Peppermint Christmas Tree Meringue Cookies Recipe

December is one of my favorite months of the year. I usually find myself in the kitchen baking holiday cookies to send out to friends and family to say how I appreciate them all for their support throughout the year. I love to make icebox cookies, peppermint cookies, wedding tea cookies, and all kinds that you can imagine to see during Christmas time. I am rotating each year to bake all of those cookies to send out. One type of the cookies that always maintain in my holiday cookies box is the Meringue!
Meringue is simple and easy to make using only 4 ingredients. You can also mix and match with all different flavors, spices, sprinkles, and dry fruit to make them special and to fit into any occasion.
For this year I would like to make the meringue as the christmas tree shape, with those christmas holiday sprinkles adding it on to make it cute and whimsical. These little meringues are very festive for the holiday season!
This Holiday Peppermint Christmas Tree Meringue Cookies recipe produces light, airy, delicious, and sweet with a slight crispy exterior that melts in your mouth meringues. They are shaped into Christmas trees then decorated with stars and pearl sprinkles to resemble a festive Christmas trees.

Notes for this recipe:

Making a meringue is all about the volume.

*You have to make sure you clean out all of your equipment to ensure there is absolutely no grease! Otherwise, you won't have the tall peaks and glossy meringue that you want. I cleaned out my bowl with lemon or lime then wipe it with a paper towel before I started to put the egg whites in.

**Make sure your egg white is completely free from egg yolk as ANY yolk will not allow your meringue to reach its maximum height

***Cream of tartar is what helps create the pure white color in these meringues.

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
As always, thank you for visiting my site and reading my article,

Natty

Holiday Peppermint Christmas Tree Meringue Cookies recipe
Author: Nattaya Worrakitpoonpol
PREP TIME: 20 MINS
COOK TIME: 90 MINS
MAKES 24 COOKIES

Ingredients

3 fresh eggs whites**
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon peppermint paste
green Gel food color

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a medium saucepan, bring about an inch or two of water to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium (this will vary by range) and keep it simmering.
In a large stand electric mixing bowl (or a large metal bowl if using hand mixer), combine the egg whites and salt*. Slightly whisk the egg white with the wire whip to break their membranes.
Add granulated sugar into a bowl and slightly whisk to allow small stabilizing bubbles to form.
Place mixing bowl over simmering saucepan of water and continuously whisk until all the granulated sugar has dissolved into egg whites. Mix for about 2 minutes or you don't feel any grainy texture in the mixture. Use your fingertip to test for sugar grain.

Remove mixing bowl from heat and add cream of tartar***.

In standing mixer bowl with the wire whip attachment, turns mixer on highest speed until stiff peaks form. Turn off the mixing bowl and scrape down the sides.

Add peppermint extract. Turn mixer on medium-high speed or speed 6, for about 30 seconds or until it is all combined in. Scrape down the sides to make sure everything is evenly combined.
To prevent the parchment paper from moving while you are piping, use a tiny amount of meringue mix and dab each corner of the underside of paper, so it sticks to the baking sheet when flipped over.

Prepare the piping bag by using a half inch round tip in a disposable piping bag. Stripe the inside of your piping bag with gel color, I am using green gel color, but you can choose whatever color in your desired design. Using a rubber spatula, fill the piping bag ½ to ¾ o the way full. You want to leave enough room to be able to twist and close off the top of the piping bag without it shooting out of the tip..

To pipe the meringue, twist and squeeze the bag from the top with one hand (you want this closed off so as to not squeeze the meringue out of the top as this will make a big mess everywhere), all the while guiding the tip with your other hand to pipe out onto your prepared baking sheets. From the base pipe up about an inch to an inch and a half wide then pull the piping bag up halfway, then twist and squeeze to create another layer of the Christmas Tree. Repeat until it completes the height of your desired tree.

Bake meringue cookies for about 90 minutes or 1 1/2 hour, make sure you rotate the pan when it bakes half way. Turn off the oven and leave the meringue cookies to cool inside or leave it overnight.