Little Lemon Meringues

Place the racks in the center and upper third of your oven and preheat to 200°F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Start with the egg whites in the bowl of your stand mixer, using the whisk attachment. Beat at medium speed until the whites get foamy. Add your pinch of salt and turn the speed to medium high. Gradually add the sugar and let the whites whip until you get firm peaks. With my stand mixer, it takes six to seven minutes. If you’re using a hand mixer, it will probably take closer to ten minutes. Then fold in your lemon zest and vanilla.

Using a piping bag or a small spoon, make your cookies using about teaspoon of the white mixture per cookie. Cookies won’t spread or puff while baking, so you can place them close together, but try not to let them touch. I used a piping bag with a star tip, but I have less than stellar piping skills and the pattern didn’t really last. I got around 50 cookies out of my batch.

Bake cookies for two hours at 200°F. The low and slow baking allows the meringues to cook all the way through and get dry and crumbly (desired in this case) without burning. Allow to cool on the pans. They should peel right off the parchment.

Keep in dry, airtight storage, if you can keep from gobbling them all up in one sitting. Not that I did that, or anything close to that.