Lemon Meringues of Bad Ass

Ahem. I would not normally post a lemon-centric recipe on this blog, because citrus is a known migraine trigger. It’s an ingredient that I avoid in all but the smallest quantities. Sometimes, if the stars align, I don’t already have a headache, my moon is in plaid, and I’ve been collecting good karma, I can add a little lemon juice to a recipe without ramifications.

But I got a couple of meyer lemons in my CSA box this week, and there’s no way I can use those up in a short time without running some risk.

So. What’s a girl to do?

Meyer Lemon Meringues

Servings: Eleventy-billion

5 egg whites
1 meyer lemon, juiced and zested
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 tsp turmeric (optional: this was just to make them yellow-ish, since I was planning to also make vanilla meringues)

Preheat oven to 200. Cover three baking sheets with tin foil. In a non-reactive metal bowl, beat the first 4 egg whites until frothy. Add about 1/2 tbsp of the lemon juice. Continue beating until soft peaks form. Add remaining lemon juice slowly, beating continuously. Add sugar, a bit at a time, beating continuously, until shiny stiff white peaks form.

In a separate, smaller bowl, beat last egg white until frothy. Add zest and turmeric, and beat until stiff peaks form. Fold gently into the egg white mixture in the large bowl.

Cut the corner (just a tiny bit, don’t make the hole too big!) off of a plastic freezer bag. Scoop the egg whites into the bag, and squish out a million little cookies. I like to do a little swirly pile, but you can just blob them out. Each cookie should have about .5 tbsp of meringue. These cookies don’t spread, so you can put them pretty close to each other. I made about 150 cookies, roughly 50 cookies per sheet. You can make them bigger, but I like my meringues to be like me – precious and tiny.

Bake in 200 degree oven for 3 hours. Turn the oven off and leave the cookies in for another hour. Remove from oven, cool, and peel cookies off of the tin foil. This is a delicate operation. Try not to break too many, as you will feel compelled to eat them. Store in airtight container.

I own these meringues. They are my bitch.