Meringue Kisses

To top my mum's birthday cake this year, I wanted to do coloured meringue kisses which I've seen a lot of cakes decorated with lately!

 

 

Meringue Kisses

 

I haven't actually tried making meringues yet in my Thermomix, however I have to 'justify' having my Kitchenaid, so I make my meringues in that!! ;)

 

Meringue Recipe:

 

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/10834/basic+meringues

 

I watched several Youtube videos on how to get the colour through it, but a lot of them overcomplicated things, it really is just as simple as painting inside a piping bag, filling up the bag and piping it as normal, putting more pressure at first to get a thicker base, and reducing the pressure as you lift up vertically to get a thin pointy tip. The first few ones that you make will come out not as perfect, but you will get the hang of it as you keep piping them!

 

I chose Wilton's gel food colouring - Pink and Teal colours as I really love the colour combo!

 

 

Gel food colouring

 

With a clean small paintbrush, I painted a few thin stripes of the food colouring into the piping bag - I used a large round tip for the larger meringue kisses, and a small one for the smaller ones.

 

 

Paint inside a piping bag

 

I then made my meringue with the above recipe. My biggest tip is to use MEDIUM speed the whole way through (I used Speed 6 on my Kitchenaid). My first try I used a high speed (Speed 9/10) and it was a massive fail, ending up looking like unicorn poop!

 

 

Failed it on high speed, Nailed it on medium speed

 





 

Perfect Meringue!

 

 

Piping large and small meringue kisses

 



I made the meringue kisses the day before decorating my cake, and it was a very humid day so the meringue's weren't as crunchy as they should be. My biggest tip to retain freshness is to place the meringues back in a 90 degree oven (doesn't need to be preheated) for 30 minutes, and they will came out like they were freshly made with a melt in your mouth crunchiness!

These look beautiful to decorate cakes or cupcakes, to add to the side of desserts, or to eat as a party snack!