hello kitty meringue cookies

After making the mini s'mores cupcakes for my first wedding dessert table, I had a ton of Swiss meringue left over.  As I don't like to let things go to waste, I decided to make meringue cookies with it!  After all, meringue cookies are simply made with meringue, and then baked at a low temperature until the meringue hardens.  So re-whipped my Swiss meringue, and filled a piping bag fitted with a large Wilton 2D tip.  Then I piped rows of pretty stars on a baking sheet lined with a silpat.

But while I was piping my stars, I realized that I could actually make any shape I wanted ... and what I wanted was Hello Kitty meringue cookies!  So I switched to a  large round tip to pipe my Hello Kitty faces, and a Wilton leaf tip to pipe my Hello Kitty ears (similar to how I've piped Hello Kitty onto cupcakes using frosting, or this cake using Swiss meringue buttercream).

For the Hello Kitty bows, I used heart-shaped sprinkles, just like with my Hello Kitty macarons.  And then they were ready for the oven!

I ended up baking them at 250F, for about an hour with the Hello Kitty meringues (and a little longer for the large star meringues).

After they were baked, I thought I could draw Hello Kitty's eyes, nose, and whiskers with edible Foodwriter pens (as I did with my Hello Kitty macarons), but alas the edible pen would not write well on the surface of the meringue!  But no matter, I still thought that the Hello Kitty meringues came out adorable even without faces!

Even the star meringues came out quite cute as well!  Hooray for using up leftovers!

*** Update:
You can now find my recipe for Hello Kitty Meringue Cookies in my new book, "The Hello Kitty Baking Book"! Enjoy!