How to make meringue mushrooms

This may make your holidays a bit more fun!!

Meringue mushrooms are great fun at holiday time. Not only are they a sweet treat but they garnish desserts and pastries with a sense of humor since, if done correctly, most people can not tell they are a candy and not the real thing!

Here is a pictorial lesson on how to make them, I did it for my class last night and now you get the pleasure of trying it on your own.

Meringue

This will make approximately 60 mushrooms

1 cup egg whites

1 cup sugar

Whip the egg whites until a foam starts and then slowly sprinkle the sugar into the whites. Whip until firm peaks form.

Then fold into the meringue:

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

This will strengthen the meringue.

Once the meringues is ready you will need:

1 pastry piping bag

1 large round piping tube

1 or 2 sheet pans with parchment lining

1 Tbl. cocoa powder

a small sifter

Begin piping out the caps onto the sheet pan.

Then take the cocoa powder, put it in the small strainer and holding the strainer bout 18" above the tray gently tap the edge to lightly sprinkle the cocoa over the tops making it look like the spots on a real mushroom.

Then begin to pipe the stems by holding the bags vertically to the pan piping out enough to build a base and then slowly bring the bag up to form a point.

Then sift the cocoa over as you did for the caps. Bake at 200 degrees for about 2 1/2 hours. I then turn the oven off and let them sit over night so they are completely dried out. This way even if it is raining they won't get soft and wet.

To assemble them take a small paring knife and drill a hole in the bottom of the cap, stick the pointed end of the stem in the hole and TA-DA there is your mushroom. Now for a bit more realism you can take some melted coating chocolate and with a small palate knife and after making the hole in the bottom, spead a little chocolate over the bottom of the cap and then put the stem in. The chocolate will not only set and hold the stem in better, make it taste awsome, it will look more like a real button mushroom with the dark underside.

Have fun and don't each too much sugar this holiday..hahahahahahahahahahahah....