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Each Halloween, I purchase meringue bones and ghosts from a well-known bakery in Guatemala, because each year I always say I will try to make them myself, but chicken out. Not this year!

In truth, I was only planning to make bones using a recipe I have from Martha Stewart’s Halloween Handbook.  It said it yields 18 bones, which I thought was enough for a first attempt.  Sigh… but Martha did it again!

I whipped out a bowl  – of a great meringue, I have to say- enough for me to make 20 bones, which is what I could fit for one batch and I still had a ton left… what will I do with all that meringue?! Mind you, the baking time is 1 hour and 20 minutes for each batch.  After I cursed and jumped up and down for a few moments, I decided to try to make ghosts with the rest of the meringue. I made 22 of them (about 2 inches wide).

The recipe in itself is great, so for accuracy’s sake, I am posting it exactly as I have it. I served the bones with hot cocoa and added red food coloring to it to make it look like a nice, hot cup of… blood.

Our tips:

• Get two cookie sheets that will fit in your oven at the same time, so you can bake as many ghosts and/or bones as you possibly can.   I do recommend that you bake all bones or all ghosts at a time.  Since they are so differently shaped, they have different baking times.
• It took me about 1 hour 10 minutes for the bones, and 1 hour 30 minutes for the ghosts.
• It should take no more than 1 hour 10 minutes, but when the weather is humid, it affects the meringue and it is harder for it to dry.
• After you finished baking your meringues, turn OFF your oven and arrange them into 2 cookie sheets.  Leave them in the oven overnight so they finish drying.
• Use this tip only on very humid days that can turn your meringues sticky, otherwise, they will crack: If the weather is too humid, and you feel your meringues are getting sticky.  Turn the oven to 300F, as soon as it reaches the temperature, turn it off.  Put the meringues in the oven for about 10min or check until they are dry to the touch. Do this about 30 minutes before you expect your guests to eat them.
• This recipe doesn’t say it but DO leave the meringues in the oven after you have turned it off.

So there you go, our best tips so you can make these meringues at home!

 Helga

Meringue Bones & Ghosts

Recipe from the Martha Stewart’s Halloween Handbook 2010
Martha Stewart says it yields 18 bones
We say it yields 20 3-inch bones and 22 small ghosts

Ingredients:
6 large egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
2. Put egg whites and sugar in the heatproof bowl of an electric mixer. Set bowl over a pan of simmering water; whisk constantly until sugar is dissolved and the mixture feels warm to the touch, about 5 minutes.
3. Return bowl to mixer, and fit mixer with the whisk attachment. Beat on high speed until very stiff peaks form, about 8 minutes.
4. Transfer meringue to a pastry bag fitted with a ½-inch plain round tip, such as a Wilton #1A.
5. Pipe bone shapes, each 3 to 4 inches long, onto two baking sheets lined with parchment paper (as shown below).
6. Bake until crisp throughout, about 1 hour. Let cool completely on a wire rack.

Here’s the video we used to help us get the hang of making the ghosts:

[youtube id=”LpYXdaQ1nHo” align=”right” mode=”normal” autoplay=”no”]

Have you made this recipe?

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This post is also available in / Esta entrada también está disponible en ESPAÑOL (SPANISH)