Meringue Christmas Trees
servings
These easy Meringue Christmas Trees are a sweet treat the whole family will love. They're dairy-free, gluten-free, and adorable, and perfect for parties or holiday cookie plates! Santa will love them!
Ingredients
- 4 large egg whites room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- pinch of cream of tartar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon green food coloring
- golden star sprinkles
- assorted white and gold sprinkles
- colored non-pareils
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 175 degrees F., and prepare a large cookie sheet by lining it with parchment paper. They will not spread as they bake, so you can put them about 1-inch apart on the tray.
- Fill a medium saucepan with a couple inches of water and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
- In a heat proof mixing bowl, combine egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar.
- Place bowl over saucepan and whisk constantly until all sugar is dissolved and egg whites are warm. This will take approximately 3-4 minutes and can be tested by rubbing the solution between your clean fingers. It should feel smooth to the touch.
- With the wire whisk attached to the mixer, place bowl in mixer and beat on low speed, gradually increasing the speed to high, and beat until the egg whites form stiff and glossy peaks about 7 - 10 minutes. Add the food coloring and vanilla and mix until well combined, being sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl, too.
- Place a Wilton open star tip 4B into a piping bag and cut off the tip of the bag. To fill the bag, Fold up the bottom of the bag with the tip, place into a tall glass, and fold the top of the bag over the glass rim. This will give you more room to spoon the meringue into the bag as opposed to just holding it with your other hand. Fill the bag ⅔ - ¾ full, so that the meringue doesn't squeeze out the top as you pipe.
- You can form the trees in two different ways by holding the piping bag at a 90 degree angle to the baking sheet. 1) Form a circle by moving the piping bag in a clockwise motion and pull up or 2) Squeeze some meringue onto the parchment to create the bottom. To create the middle of the tree, pull up the bag as you gently squeeze a smaller section than the bottom. Do the same to put an even smaller section on the top. See note.
- Place a gold star on the top of each tree, and sprinkle with the gold and white sugar and/or colored non-pareils.
- Bake for 2 hours without opening the oven door at any point.
- Turn oven off (again without opening the oven door) and allow meringues to remain in oven for another 4 hours or overnight. Before serving, you can also dust with powdered sugar to resemble snow.
- Can be stored in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
Notes
I mention two different ways of piping the trees in the directions, but found they were more uniform and thought they looked more like trees when pulling up the piping bag, and creating the three sections as opposed to using the swirl method. All of the trees pictured were created that way.
It's important to hold the piping bag at a 90° angle over the parchment otherwise they trees will be crooked or slump over.
The trees measure about 1 ¼ inch in height. If they are taller than that they'll fall over, so try not to make them too tall.
I dusted some of them with powdered sugar using my OXO sugar duster so that they'd have a snowy appearance.
It's important to hold the piping bag at a 90° angle over the parchment otherwise they trees will be crooked or slump over.
The trees measure about 1 ¼ inch in height. If they are taller than that they'll fall over, so try not to make them too tall.
I dusted some of them with powdered sugar using my OXO sugar duster so that they'd have a snowy appearance.
Nutrition
Serving: 1serving | Calories: 10kcal | Carbohydrates: 3g | Protein: 0.2g | Fat: 0.01g | Sodium: 3mg | Potassium: 3mg | Sugar: 3g | Calcium: 0.1mg | Iron: 0.003mg