Meringue Mushrooms

Total Time: 1 hr 30 mins Preparation Time: 1 hr 30 mins

Ingredients

• 2 egg whites
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• to taste cocoa
• to taste chocolate icing (use a smidge from the yule log recipe.))

Recipe

• 1 cover 2 cookie sheets with baking parchment paper, anchoring, if necessary with a dab of the meringue when it's ready.
• 2 beat egg whites and cream of tartar in small mixer bowl (i use my big kitchen aid bowl) until foamy.
• 3 beat in sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time; continue beating until stiff and glossy, about 5 minutes. do not underbeat.
• 4 heat oven to 225 degrees.
• 5 fit decorators' tube or pastry bag with plain tip with 1/4" opening.
• 6 fill bag with meringue and fold top of bag to close. anchor the paper to the cookie sheets with a couple dabs of meringue. hold upright and pipe out about 55 mushroom caps, each 1 to 1-1/4 inches in diameter.
• 7 sift cocoa over caps.
• 8 now, this is important: stick your forefinger in sugar and gently pat down the peak that's sticking up on all those caps! bake until firm, 45-50 minutes.
• 9 remove from oven and immediately turn caps upside down and make an indentation in bottom of each cap. (i use a wood skewer or small knife tip to poke/carve a bit of a hole.)
• 10 brush excess cocoa from caps with a soft-bristled brush.
• 11 pipe about fifty-five 3/4" upright stems on second cookie sheet. they should have peaks which will fit into mushroom caps.
• 12 bake until firm 40-45 minutes. remove from oven; cool.
• 13 to assemble the mushrooms, pipe a small amount of frosting into the indentation of each mushroom cap; insert stem and stand to dry.
• 14 store mushrooms uncovered or loosely covered at room temperature. they'll keep a week or so.
• 15 use the mushrooms to decorate a yule log cake. extra mushrooms can be packaged in -- a mushroom carton -- for a special treat.