Meringue Cookies - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - 100th installment. The recipe is Meringue Cookies.

Wonderful to have something nice and simple as the next installment after Chocolate Ruffle Cake.  This couldn't be easier - beaten egg whites with sugar and a bit of salt. I beat them in the Kitchen Aid for the prescribed amount of time and they whipped right up:

I used the pastry bag with a star tip to pipe them out onto parchment-lined sheets. It was fun to play with the pastry bag, and I like the way they look. 

S-swirls before baking

Stars before baking

They baked up nicely - you bake them for 45 minutes at a low temperature (175-200 degrees) so they are crunchy, rather than chewy.   Mine got slightly golden - you are supposed to remove them before they color at all, but perhaps my oven was a little bit warm.
Once done, I drizzled some with chocolate, and used melted chocolate and raspberry jam as fillings.  The unfilled ones kept well for several days in a closed container. This recipe makes many cookies, but you can always decrease the number of egg whites for a smaller batch.

Endless rows of baked meringue cookies