Today's Kitchen: Santa Hat Meringues!

I'm a creative and engineering mind, which really works for my baking passion. I dream up ideas constantly, and am blessed to be able to actually execute it most of the time. It's probably pretty unlikely that thousands of years of human existence has really left any truly new ideas, especially in baking and cooking, but my ideas are "new to me".  I'm influenced certainly by old cookbooks and stumbling online for research, but more often than not, I'm looking to put a new twist on something, try new flavor combinations, etc. OK.....on to today's kitchen!

Santa Hat Meringues

I host a Cookie Party every year for my small family. I'd expand it, but I live in a small villa and although my kitchen and dining area are good size considering, there's still really only room for about 6-8 people before it's chaos.  Someday, when I have a bakery, we'll relocate and expand the party:)

So it's probably a typical cookie party.....everyone brings 2 dozen cookies and printed recipes to share, and together we bake and decorate sugar and gingerbread cookies. The idea is, everyone creates a NEW cookie each year. I've made peppermint shortbread that I colored and shaped into candy canes, cinnamon pecan balls (think mexican wedding cakes with some spice), peppermint patties (chocolate crinkles sandwiched with peppermint frosting-those were AMAZING frozen), egg nog cookies...there has to be more, this will be the 6th year...oh well. So this year, I really wanted to do something traditional, of course with a twist. 

I got out my grandma's Betty Crocker cookbook and started flipping through pages for inspiration....that book makes everything look WAY old fashioned and inspiration didn't hit yet. I was stumbling last week (until I get off the wait list at pinterest, I spend several hours a week stumbling) and came across meringues shaped like ghost, which were super cute! I haven't had a good night sleep since I left my job in September, so as I was dozing, I came back to these ghost meringues and thought they kind of resembled Santa hats! I've never made meringue, so I have no idea if you can 1. color it or 2. if you can, will the color separation hold up?

So today...at the last minute of course...I tackled them.  I followed the Joy of Cooking recipe for the batter. I put 1/3 of the batter in a piping bag (really, I use freezer ziplocs....I loathe cleanup) with a #5 round tip. I colored the rest of the batter with Wilton Christmas Red (which still really looks pink....red icing is the devil) and put it in a piping bag with the extra large round tip. I don't know the size, but it requires the extra large coupler. I piped small white disc on parchment paper. I took the red piping bag and put it in the middle of the disc, perpendicular to the cookie sheet, and piped, slowly raising the bag to create the "hat" shape. I went back with the white batter and made small dollups to create the little puffs. I followed the Joy of Cooking recipe for baking. 

I'm SO happy with how they turned out! I don't know if I've ever tasted a meringue cookie before, or maybe I had a bad one, but I was under the impression they were almost like astronaut ice cream...dry sugar air. I was pleasantly surprised to find these are crisp on the outside, but delightfully marshmallowey in the center! If I was displaying these for a party (sort of like I am tomorrow...) I think they could be bigger for sure, but at this size, they'll make a nice and festive addition to gift cookie tins!

Until the next dreamy thought...