This Red, White, And Blue Meringues recipe is the perfect patriotic dessert to make for your July 4th parties or to root on Team USA during the Olympics. Plus, these cookies are much easier to make than you’d think.
For more ideas of what to make, check out all of our dessert recipes.
I love making colorful meringue cookies for holidays. It’s a really simple dessert that’s so easy to change for every holiday. All you need to do is change the colors. This version was made for fourth of July, so it’s red, white, and blue, but, if you’re making this sweet treat for another holiday, just follow the tutorial but change the colors of the food coloring to fit your holiday.
If you’ve never made meringue cookies before, don’t be intimidated. It’s a really easy recipe to make. Meringues just take a little bit of time and care. But, mostly care.
You split the eggs, making sure to not get any yolk in the whites. If you do, your egg whites might not whip properly. Speaking of whipping, you have to whip the mixture until stiff peaks form, which just means you need to run the mixer and let it do its magic.
And then, you bake these and let them rest an hour. The resting is crucial for the proper taste.
And the taste. I always think they taste like marshmallow if it was a cookie. But when I made this batch for a party, more than half the tasters told me they taste exactly like Lucky Charms marshmallows.
This is just one of the fun red, white, and blue recipes we have on Drugstore Divas. For more ideas, check out all of our Patriotic Recipes.
Red, White, And Blue Meringues Recipe
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Red, White, And Blue Meringues Ingredients:
- 3 eggs
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 2 tablespoons vanilla
- 2/3 cups sugar
- 6 drops red gel food coloring
- 6 drops blue gel food coloring
How To Make Red, White, And Blue Meringues:
Pre-heat the oven to 250 F.
Separate the egg whites from the egg yolks. You’ll need the whites to make these cookies, not the yolks.
Put the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer.
Add the salt, cream of tartar, and vanilla.
Using the whisk attachment, beat on medium speed for two minutes.
Add in the sugar.
Beat on high speed for 10 minutes until stiff peaks form.
Quick note: You can use a hand mixer to make meringues if that’s all you have, but hand mixing for 10 minutes until still peaks form is really tedious. So, if you have a stand mixer, it’s much easier.
Also, a second note: The vanilla will turn the mixture a cola color for a little while. It looks worrisome because you’re waiting for the white of the meringue batter. Don’t worry. As you whip, the color changes and it will be a beautiful bright white by the time your stiff peaks form. Trust me.
Separate the meringue into three bowls.
Quick note: The best way to do this is to put 1/3 into a bowl, 1/3 into a second bowl, and then leave 1/3 in the stand mixer’s bowl. That way, you only have two extra bowls to clean.
Add the red gel food coloring to one of the bowls. Add the blue gel food coloring to another of the bowls.
Fold the food coloring in gently. You want to fold, not stir, because you don’t want to deflate the meringue. If you do, the cookies will weep and deflate in the middle.
Put some of the red meringue, some of the blue meringue, and some of the white meringue into a piping bag with a 2D piping tip.
Pipe the cookies onto silicone baking mat-lined baking sheets.
Quick note: The first couple cookies may come out with a dominant color, but the colors will even out the more you pipe.
Keep adding the meringue into the piping bag until you’re done piping all the cookies. You’ll end up with enough cookies for two full cookie sheets (at least 80 cookies depending on the size of the cookies you pipe).
Bake for 40 minutes.
Turn off the oven and crack the door open. Leave the meringues in the oven for an additional hour with the oven door open. If you skip this part, you won’t dry out the meringues enough and will end up with a really chewy texture. The cookies will also wrinkle if you don’t let them dry out long enough, so they won’t be pretty.
By the time that hour is over, you’ll end up with room temperature cookies that will pop right off the baking sheets (and straight into your mouth).
Red, White, And Blue Meringues: Frequently Asked Questions
Meringue batter is really sticky. If you don’t line your baking sheets, there’s a very good chance the cookies will get stuck to the baking sheet and will be a real mess to clean. Silicone baking mats ensure that the cookies pop right off.
Personally, I prefer silicone baking mats to parchment paper because they’re reusable. So, they’re more frugal than single use parchment paper and will save you money in the long run.
I usually will give the hack that if you don’t have piping bags, you can put batter into a plastic bag, cut off a piece of the corner, and pip that way. That doesn’t work with meringue.
If you try to pipe meringue that way, you’d need to cut a large hole in the corner to pipe large enough to make full cookies. Plus, the only shape you’ll be able to make that way is a circle, which is okay but not as pretty as you can make with piping tips.
I usually use a 1M piping tip for making meringue cookies. For these cookies, I used a 2D piping tip to kind of make the cookies look like stars, since these are patriotic meringue cookies and stars are on the flag. But, you can use whatever tips you like.
Because the meringue is thick, I think large piping tips, rather than standard size piping tips, work better. Which means you’ll need a large coupler, not a standard size coupler. So just keep that in mind.
Gel food coloring is a little bit more expensive than regular food coloring, but you use less of it, so the cost evens out. You can use gel food coloring to dye things like chocolate, which will cease if you use traditional food coloring in it. So, it’s handy to have on hand.
For meringue, you can use regular food coloring. You just might need to use more of it to reach your desired color.
Red, White, And Blue Meringues
This Red, White, And Blue Meringues recipe is the perfect patriotic dessert to make for your July 4th parties or to root on Team USA during the Olympics. Plus, these cookies are much easier to make than you’d think.
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 2 tablespoons vanilla
- 2/3 cups sugar
- 6 drops red gel food coloring
- 6 drops blue gel food coloring
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 250 F.
- Separate the egg whites from the egg yolks.
- Put the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer.
- Add the salt, cream of tartar, and vanilla.
- Using the whisk attachment, beat on medium speed for two minutes.
- Add in the sugar.
- Beat on high speed for 10 minutes until stiff peaks form.
- Separate the meringue into three bowls.
- Add the red gel food coloring to one of the bowls. Add the blue gel food coloring to another of the bowls.
- Fold the food coloring in gently. You want to fold, not stir, because you don’t want to deflate the meringue. If you do, the cookies will weep and deflate in the middle.
- Put some of the red meringue, some of the blue meringue, and some of the white meringue into a piping bag with a 2D piping tip.
- Pipe the cookies onto silicone baking mat-lined baking sheets.
- Keep adding the meringue into the piping bag until you’re done piping all the cookies. You’ll end up with enough cookies for two full cookie sheets.
- Bake for 40 minutes.
- Turn off the oven and crack the door open. Leave the meringues in the oven for an additional hour with the oven door open.
Nutrition Information
Yield
40Serving Size
1Amount Per Serving Calories 20Total Fat 0gSaturated Fat 0gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 0gCholesterol 14mgSodium 19mgCarbohydrates 3gFiber 0gSugar 3gProtein 0g
Have you made these Red, White, And Blue Meringue Cookies? Let us know how it went in the comments.
Paula
Friday 6th of September 2024
Oh My! This is so fun and unique.
Jennifer Wise
Tuesday 13th of August 2024
Oh, this is so fun! I have ONE meringue recipe (with crushed candy canes for Christmas), and you're right--they're easier than you might think. I love the summery/4th of July colors here.
Joanne
Thursday 8th of August 2024
This is such a fun idea for a patriotic treat!