If you've ever looked at a bit of crumbling drywall and gone "boy am I hungry right now" then meringues are the recipe for you. They're simultaneously very simple and very finnicky, but if you can get the hang of them then you can experience eating chalk (but sweet!) whenever you want, with none of the limestone content involved in eating real chalk. A batch of meringues is just 3 egg whites, (at ROOM TEMPERATURE) 1/8th teaspoon cream of tartar, 3/4 cups regular white granulated sugar, and a half teaspoon of vanilla extract. (or you could do a different flavor, if you like your conkrete to be fancy. I do not. I am here to experience texture with minimal flavor.)
You combine all the ingredients but the sugar in a mixer with a whisk attachment, and whisk at high speed until soft peaks form. Then slowly sift in the granulated sugar, whisking as you go. Once all the sugar is whisked in, keep mixing for another five minutes--the mix should be glossy and sleek, not dry.
Then pipe the cookies onto a parchment-lined pan, about two inches across, leaving an inch of space between. If you have fancy frosting tips and a piping bag, use them. Bafflingly, I do not have those (why? what have I been doing with my life that I own three machetes but not frosting tips?) so I just used a gallon ziplock with a hole poked into it and made beautiful little angel turd shapes.
They bake at 200 F for 45 minutes, and then should be allowed to rest in the oven for another half hour with the temperature off. Don't open the oven while they bake! Let them cool completely, and then you can eat something that has both the visual look and the mouth-feel of a packing peanut.
I love these things. I'll post an out-of-oven picture when they're done in like an hour.
Mmmmmmm fresh out of the oven and they have the texture of expandable spray foam insulation, with a slight outer crust and squishy inside. Now cooling for cronch; if they don't crisp up the recipe could maybe use more sugar.
This is great stuff.
They're done! They were still a little soft in the middle after cooling, so this morning I kicked the oven on, let it get up to three hundred degrees, went to work, sat down at my desk and realized I'd just left the oven on, walked back home, turned off the oven, dumped the meringues back onto a pan and left them in the oven as it cooled down. So now they're nice and crunchy.
@auntynessi I hear you're making some flavoured conkrete!!
