Inspiring whimsical sweets & savory dishes

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Homemade Meringue Candy Necklaces

by Darla

I made the funnest thing ever this week.

I couldn’t even begin to tell you what inspired it or how I thought it up. All I know is, I’m super glad about it.

I wanted jewelry for Valentine’s Day; edible jewelry that I could share with my peeps (that’s you). What’s better than a candy necklace, I ask?

Nothing. That’s what.

There is nothing better than a candy necklace. Especially for Valentine’s Day!

When I first thought of these homemade candy necklaces, I wasn’t 100% sure what was going to happen. I mean, they were pretty much either going to be the best thing ever. Or they were going to be the silliest thing ever.

I’m pretty thrilled, and not at all humble, about saying that they were a resounding success, and they really are the best thing ever. Ever. My little endeavor to create homemade, from scratch candy necklaces was brilliant (I know I’m being awfully proud here, but I can’t help it…they make me utterly happy), and they turned out so completely cute and fanciful! I am in love with them, and I don’t care who knows it!!

Meringues are super simple, you only need four ingredients to make them: sugar, egg whites, cream of tartar, and extract, such as lemon, vanilla, or raspberry, and food coloring, if desired.

In a large bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer, whisk together the egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar. Place the bowl on top of a medium sauce pan filled with a couple of inches of barely simmering water and set over medium heat. Gently whisk the mixture constantly until the sugar dissolves, about 10 minutes. Transfer the bowl to the standing mixer (if you’re not using a standing mixer, just remove the bowl from heat and use a hand mixer), and whisk the mixture on high until stiff peaks form. If making several colors or flavors, divide the mixture into separate bowls and gently stir in the extracts and food colorings.

Once your meringue is ready, transfer it to a piping bag fitted with a Wilton #4 writing tip (or comparable), and pipe small rings on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Make sure that the rings have a nice open center, because they will spread very slightly (even with great, stiff meringue). Pipe a single circle onto the sheet, then continue piping until you have piped the circle twice. This will make the ring twice as high/thick, making it less fragile.

I used Silpat mats for my first two batches, but I recommend parchment paper instead. You can certainly use Silpat mats, but the meringues tend to stick a little more, and will have more of a tendency to crack. With parchment paper, the meringues release easily, and I didn’t have any breaks.

I made four colors and four flavors: yellow lemon, white vanilla, pink cherry, and blue raspberry.

You’ll notice that the white and yellow rings have the best shaped, while the pink and blue rings are less uniform. I discovered that it’s important to pipe all of the rings at once, because as the other colors sat (for two and three hours of bake times), the meringue softened slightly, causing them to have trouble holding their shape.

The blue “rings” lost their shape entirely, while the pink ones had to be piped large and thin to keep from filling in the center.

My biggest recommendation for this project: place four (or more) sheets of parchment paper the size of your baking sheets on flat surfaces. Pipe all of your meringue immediately, filling the paper with as many rings as possible. Set aside and do not disturb until they can be baked. The meringues will dry slightly as they sit, but that’s okay, as the end goal is to bake them until dried anyway.

I don’t recommend this if you live somewhere very humid, but I wouldn’t recommend making meringues in a very humid climate anyway.

Once all of your meringues are baked and cooled, you can begin stringing them together. :)

I used green and white baker’s twine for mine, but thin satin ribbon, twine, or another type of string would work well, too. The reason I like the baker’s twine, though, is because it stays tied very well. Satin ribbon tends to loosen or even untie completely with too much agitation, but twine holds tight without having to be double knotted.

Once I had all of my rings done, i decided that my necklaces needed some sweet heart pendants to make them even more perfect for Valentine’s Day.

All I did for these was pipe meringue hearts onto my parchment paper, then add an already baked ring to the top. Notice that the ring is standing on its side, and it is stuck directly into the soft meringue. When these are finished baking, the ring will be securely attached, and you’ll have pendants!

I. Love. These. Necklaces.

Like, with all my heart.

A word of warning, though: if you expect to have these whipped up and assembled in a short time, I have to tell you that it just isn’t going to happen. These are very easy to make, and they’re very quick to mix up, but you need to be prepared for two to four hours of waiting while they bake. Obviously, that’s no work at all, just a lot of waiting, but you can’t make these at the last minute. They only take about 15 to 20 minutes to mix and another 10 minutes or so to pipe, but they take one hour per two sheets to bake (you can place two baking sheets in your oven at one time, as long as they are evenly spaced and you rotate them front to back and top to bottom halfway through the baking time). You need a day to wait for them all to bake and cool. I would recommend making the candy one day, and assembling them the next.

I know that these aren’t a fancy schmancy cake, and they aren’t a super creative and detailed cookie. They’re not an irresistible and mouthwatering recipe, or an uber complicated concoction, but these sweet little homemade candy necklaces may just be my very favorite thing I’ve ever made!

They’re delicious, they’re seriously adorable, they’re incredibly easy and fun to make, and they are completely unexpected. What’s not to love?!

Please, go make these! You will have so much fun and kids and adults alike will be enchanted (yes, enchanted) by them. Enjoy!

Meringue Candy Necklaces [Printable Version]
Makes several, depending on length of each necklace

Prep time: 25 to 35 minutes
Bake time: 2 to 4 hours, possibly longer

Ingredients

4 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon raspberry extract (and/or other flavors, if desired) *see note
Food coloring, optional

Preheat oven to 175 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer, whisk together the egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar. Place the bowl on top of a medium sauce pan filled with a couple of inches of barely simmering water and set over medium heat. Gently whisk the mixture constantly until the sugar dissolves, about 10 minutes. Transfer the bowl to the standing mixer (if you’re not using a standing mixer, just remove the bowl from heat and use a hand mixer), and whisk the mixture on high until stiff peaks form. If making several colors or flavors, divide the mixture into separate bowls and gently stir in the extracts and food colorings.

Fit a pastry bag per color/flavor  with a Wilton #4 writing tip (or comparable), fill each bag with meringue, and pipe small circles, slightly larger than Cheerios onto prepared baking sheets. Refill bag as necessary. Pipe all of the meringue immediately, even if you can’t bake it all at the same time.

Bake rings until crisp but not brown, about 1 hour. Let cool completely on sheets on wire racks.

To make meringue heart pendants: Pipe large hearts (about 1 1/2-inches across) onto the prepared baking sheets. Place a baked and cooled ring in the center of the heart, standing on its side, to act as the loop that will connect the heart to the necklace. Bake for 1 hour 40 minutes, until crisp but not brown. Let cool completely on sheets on wire racks.

* You will need 1 teaspoon total flavoring for this recipe, so if you divide it into 4 flavors, each flavor will get 1/4 teaspoon of its respective flavor.

Created and recipe by Darla

Meringue making tips:

1. Don’t let any yolk at all into the egg whites…not even a tiny speck.

2. Always make meringue in metal or glass, never plastic. Plastic can absorb oils and such from other uses that a washing doesn’t always remove.

3. Make sure your bowl is 100% clean.

4. Make sure your cream of tartar is not expired. Although cream of tartar isn’t required for meringue, it’s very helpful in adding lift and volume.

5. Always try to use the freshest eggs you can get.

6. Separate your eggs while they’re cold, but allow them to come to room temperature before starting the process.

7. Make sure that your sugar is completely dissolved before you begin whipping the mixture.

8. When adding color/flavor, be sure to stir it in thoroughly, but gently.

Candy necklace tips:

1. Make a double loop of meringue to ensure the ring will be thick enough not to break while working with it.

2. Make all of your rings at once. This will mean having to place parchment paper on flat surfaces around your kitchen in order to have somewhere to make them all, but it’s an important step. By piping them all right away, you will get the best shapes, and the shapes will hold better (see blue rings above to see an example of rings that weren’t piped soon enough).

3. These can be made on Silpat mats, however, I don’t recommend it. They are somewhat delicate and they will release without breaking when parchment paper is used.

4. If the hole of a ring has closed, but there’s still a deep indentation where it was, you can thread the necklace string through it by gently using a needle to pierce the thinnest part of the candy.

Isn’t my sister the best candy necklace model ever?? ♥

{ 19 comments }

Monday, February 6, 2012

Virtual Valentine’s Day Party: Have Your Cake (and Cookies) and Eat It, Too!

by Darla

I am so excited to be celebrating Valentine’s Day today with some of my very favorite bloggers! Miss Shelly, the funny and super creative lady behind Cookies and Cups was so sweet to organize this little virtual get together, and I’m thrilled and honored to be partying with such talented women.

I’ve always liked Valentine’s Day. I love love. We’ve never been big Valentine’s Day celebrators in my house, but I still love it. Our Valentines are always homemade…homemade cards, homemade gifts. Usually, I make food. Surprised?

When I was a little girl, the Valentine’s Day party at school was always one of my favorite days of the year. It wasn’t the candy, although that was great, and it wasn’t the Valentines, per se. I just loved that, on that day, everybody was loved. Everybody got a little card that said something nice from everybody else in class. Seriously, what could be better than that? School can be tough. Kids can be mean. But for at least one day, every year, every kid was just as included as every other kid. Even then, I knew that was something worth celebrating.

I never felt like I had to have a boyfriend or a date for every, single Valentine’s Day, either. It all went back to the same idea that everyone was special on Valentine’s Day, so I was just as happy hanging out with my girls, as I was going on a date. We’d all get dressed up in red and pink and sparklyness, or we’d throw on goofy headbands with bobbly hearts, and we would do something fun for the girls. I’m not gonna lie, once it was to go to a romantic movie and playfully heckle the couples. But it was all in good fun.

That’s why I’m so happy to be celebrating with my bloggie girls today! I’m not going to be spending Valentine’s Day with the Hubster this year, so I’m partying hardy with the girls, just like old times. :) So be sure to click through all of the links at the end of the post and check out the amazing Valentine lovliness that my friends have created today. :)

When I got Shelly’s invite, I knew right away what I wanted to share. I knew I didn’t want to settle for just cake, or candy, or cookies; it’s Valentine time, it just had to be all three, or nothing at all. How to manage this, you ask? Easy: fill some cookies with frosting laden caky goodness, dip them in yummy candy melts, and cover them in sprinkles. Then, put ‘em on a stick. Cause treats on a stick are just fun.

Just like I did at Halloween, I found some seriously cute stamps at Michaels for a dollar each. They were seriously too cute to pass up, and I knew when i saw them that they would be used with this recipe, somehow some way!

This time, I decided to use the stamps directly on the cookie dough, rather than on fondant, like last time. I proceeded to color, roll out, cut, and stamp all of my sugar cookies with them.

On some, I used the cute images and shapes, while others got sweet Valentine messages, like “be mine.”

This one was my favorite. :) A cute little Eiffel Tower with “I love you” in French: je t’aime. It turned out so sweet!

Once the cookies were cooled, I placed some cake mixture (the same stuff that cake bites are made of) on half of the cookies. Next, I spread the mixture out so that it covered the cookie evenly. Finally, I added another cookie on top to turn these into the best sandwiches ever.

The only trouble I ran into with these cookies, was while using the stamps on them; some of them really lost their stamp shapes while baking. All of the ones with images did very well, and held their shapes, but the ones with letters ended up basically looking like blank cookies. But it was okay, because I had intended to use colors on them anyway, so I broke out my food writers and proceeded to color the stamps, then stamp the cookies. I used the impressions from before as guides, and they all turned out great.

Next up, it was time to add the candy. I decided to dip the edges of the sandwiches in candy melts to seal in the cake filling, while also providing the much needed Valentine’s Day candy. For the tops of the cookies, since I did hearts, I had to spoon a little candy into the point in the center, then I was able to dip the sides of the cookies into the candy easily.

I dressed my cookies up with more candy, in the form of fun sprinkles.

Sprinkles make everything better. :)

Once the cookie’s sides are completely dipped, tap them gently to remove excess candy, add a lollipop stick, and sprinkle away! The more, the merrier. Of course. :)

The sweet French cookie is still my very favorite, but I adore how all of them turned out.

And they tasted absolutely wonderful! Never again will I have to choose one treat for Valentine’s Day. I can have cake, cookies, and candy…all in one fantastic little dessert. Heaven!

These were super fast and easy, even though they seem pretty involved and time consuming. There’s just a lot of wait times to get through with baking, chilling, and setting up, but otherwise, these are as easy as 1-2-3. And if you want to save even more time, you can use cake mix, store bought frosting, and refrigerated cookie dough! Yay for easy! Plus, they’re super fun for the kiddos to help with. Happy Valentine’s Day and enjoy!

Cake-filled Cookies
Makes 2 to 3 dozen sandwich cookies, depending on size

Ingredients

1 9×13-inch cake, flavor of your choice

16 ounces frosting, flavor of your choice

1 recipe rolled sugar cookies

Candy melts

Sprinkles

Food Writers  for stamping, optional

Instructions:

Bake the cake as directed and let it cool completely.

Make the frosting as directed and set aside.

Bake the cookies as directed in the recipe above, cutting out shapes, as desired. I made these slightly thinner than usual, since they’re going to be sandwich cookies. Let cool completely.

Once the cake is cooled, break it up by hand, or with a food processor, until it is just crumbs. Stir in the frosting until thoroughly combined.

Place half of the cooled cookies, bottom side up, on a cooling rack or baking sheet. Place 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons of the cake mixture on each of the cookies. Using clean hands, press the cake mixture until it fills the entire cookie evenly. Place another cookie, right side up, on top of the cake mixture to create a sandwich. Once all of the sandwiches are done, place them in the refrigerator to chill fro about 30 to 45 minutes, or freeze for 15 to 20 minutes.

Remove from the freezer and dip the edges of the cookies in melted candy melts. You may need to use a spoon to fill in any gaps. Tap off excess candy gently, add sprinkles, and a lollipop stick, if desired. Place the cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a Silpat mat, and allow them to set up completely before serving.

Recipe by Darla

Now it’s time to PARTAY! Don’t forget to visit all of the other incredible Valentine’s Day treats from my talented friends! You can find a preview of each of their creations, as well as links to them below. You have to check them out; they’re gorgeous! ~xoxo

1. Confessions of a Cookbook Queen  ~ Valentines Twinkies on a Stick
2. Buns in My Oven ~ Hot Fudge and Strawberry Donut Pudding
3. Glorious Treats ~ Red Velvet Cupcakes
4. Cookies and Cups ~ Glass Topper Valentines Cookies
5. Bakingdom ~ Valentines Day Cookie Cakes
6. The Hungry Housewife ~ Valentines Jello Hearts
7. Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle ~ Valentines Dotty Cookies
8. Sprinkle Bakes ~ Red Velvet Cake Minis
9. Bake at 350 ~ Double-Decker, Stripey, Valentine Cookies
10. Two Peas and Their Pod ~ Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies
11. Scarletta Bakes ~ Mexican Chocolate Hearts
12. She Wears Many Hats ~ Valentines Popcorn

{ 42 comments }

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