Time for our Wizard of Earthsea dessert! While I was developing this menu, I knew I wanted to have a recipe dedicated to the dragons. There isn’t a specific one mentioned in the book, and none of the savory ideas I came up with felt right. Then I thought of making a flame-themed dessert.
One of the tricky things about blogging for almost 5 years is that sometimes the ideas you get for new recipes are too similar to something you’ve posted in the past. Flame cupcakes were the first thing that came to mind, but I made them before for my Hunger Games menu and couldn’t think of a way to make a second version unique enough. Then cookies came to mind, but plain old sugar cookies just felt too boring.
Then I thought of meringue! It’s one of my favorite desserts to play with, and I loved that meringue cookies would allow me to make tiny 3D clusters of flame. I whipped up my favorite meringue recipe (a combo of the instructions from my baked Alaska post and this Taste of Home recipe) and started experimenting—and came up with these little beauties! They were SO fun to make. I love that each one is different. It makes you want to take the time to really look at and appreciate them before you take a bite. Enjoy! 🙂
A
Dragon Flame Meringue Cookies
“Now after a little time there came three [dragons] against him from the island. One of these was much greater, and fire spewed curling from its jaws. Two came flying at him rattling their wings, but the big one came circling from behind, very swift, to burn him and his boat with its breath of fire.”
— A Wizard of Earthsea
INGREDIENTS:
- 2 egg whites, room temperature
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 10 drops orange gel food coloring and 4-5 drops red gel food coloring (not pictured)
Makes 24 meringue cookies
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Preheat oven to 250°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. Add the egg white, vanilla, cream of tartar, and orange food coloring to the bowl of a standing mixer. Beat on medium speed until soft peaks form. Set the mixer speed to high and beat in the sugar 1 tablespoon at a time. Beat until stiff peaks form.
- While you wait, fit a disposable piping bag (a large ziplock bag with a corner cut off works as well) with a large star tip. Line the inside of the bag with 4-5 evenly spaced vertical lines of red gel coloring. If you’ve got a paintbrush devoted to food use, you can use that to paint them on. I put mine on by applying the dots of food coloring straight on the bag one at a time and spreading them out into lines with a toothpick. It’s ok if the lines are wide and messy as you spread them out, since we want our flames to have plenty of red in them and lots of variety in color placement.
Having trouble applying your lines? Try folding the bag inside out over your hand and then adding the dye. Make sure the red stripes go right up to the seam between the piping tip and the bag. This will help you avoid piping lots of plain orange meringue as you wait for the red to come through. - Scoop the meringue mix into the piping bag. For each cookie, pipe meringue in 1-2 inch high clusters of 4-5. Space your cookies an inch or 2 apart. Don’t worry about making them all the exact same size or shape. Fire is an organic thing, and every flame is different. The uniqueness of each cookie is part of what makes these so fun! 🙂
- Bake for 35-40 minutes until set. Turn off heat and leave the pan in the oven for 3 hours. Serve immediately or pack in a single layer with parchment paper over them in a sealed container.
- Serve to a powerful dragon to convince him to spare the islanders he’s been terrorizing.
Check out my other meringue recipes!
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