Halloween is just round the corner. We’re working on our Halloween Cake Project, which we bake some cakes and decorate them in Halloween theme.

One of the them is those cute little Meringue Ghost, which I found on Joy of Baking and I couldn’t wait to try out.

This wasn’t my first time making meringue. One of the first few recipes I tried when I first started baking was Japanese Cotton Cheese Cake. And a soft peak meringue is an important step for making a yummy and soft Japanese Cotton Cheese Cake. This was how I learned to make meringue and what’s soft peak and stiff peak.

Making meringue is actually quite easy with a few useful tips to remember:

First your eggs have to be fresh. And when you separate your egg white and yolk, you have to make sure your egg whites are free of yolk, not even a single drop of the yolk. If you are using eggs from fridge, separate them first, then thaw them at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Second, your baking utensils must be really clean and free of oil. Oil will break the whites.

Third, the egg white to sugar ratio: every large (Grade A) egg white to 50g caster sugar.

My first batch was a failure because the eggs that I bought last weekend, weren’t fresh enough. Therefore, the egg whites didn’t form and I had to threw them away. Sad. T_T

In order to make my second batch of meringue, I had to rush out to buy some more fresh Grade A eggs from the nearby shop.

Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Baking Time: 80-100 minutes
Temperature: 110C degree
Make 40 1 inch meringue ghosts

Here are the ingredients:

2 large egg whites
100g caster sugar (1/2 cup)
you can grind it in the food processor as suggested in the original JOB recipe, but I didn’t and my meringue turned out fine.
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
some chocolate chips for the ghosts’ eyes

How-to:

1. Preheat the oven to 100-110C degree. Line the baking tray with non-stick parchment paper.

2. Whisk the egg whites till foamy, then add in the cream of tartar and continue whisking till soft-peaks* are formed.

3. Mix in the sugar gradually while you continue whisking. This way the sugar can dissolve more evenly. However, if you have ground the caster sugar to powder form in the food proccesor, you can add all the sugar in at one go and whisk the mixture till stiff-peaks* are formed and look glossy.

*Soft-peak
When you lift your beater, your mixture will curve and droop.

*Medium-peak
The tip of your mixture will curve only a little, but not drooping.

*Stiff-peak
The tip of your mixture should stand pointing upward, and will not curve. When you overturn your mixing bowl, the mixture remain firm and will not drop.

4. Fill the meringue into a piping bag with a 1/2 inch round tip nozzle.

5. Gently squeeze the filled pipping bag in a circular motion, lift off slowly and you will get a little ghost-like shape with a slight curvy tip.

6. Decorate the meringue ghost with the chocolate chips for the eyes.

7. Bake in the oven for 80 to 100 minutes (1 1/2 hours) at 100-110C degrees till the little ghosts are hard when you touch. And it can be removed easily without sticking to the parchment paper. Otherwise, just continue baking for another 20 minutes so.

With the low temperature, your meringue ghost should not turn brown too much, except maybe only a slight gold tip.

8. Leave them to cool in the oven for maybe 5 minutes and immediately store them in air-tight containers while they are still warm and dry. Otherwise they will turn sticky and soft again due to our Malaysian hot and humid weather.

9. If you happen to leave them too long outside, and they become sticky to your fingers and crumbled, don’t freak out. Just put them back into the oven and bake at 110C degree for about 30 minutes or so. However, they will not be as crispy as it should be.

Original recipe from Joy of Baking & 101cookbooks
Tested by SC