Date Nut Meringues Recipes

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with racks in upper third and middle. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and baking powder. Add dates, pecans, and raisins, and stir with a wooden spoon until fruit and nuts are coated. In a small bowl, whisk together eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, oil, lemon juice, vanilla, and salt. Add to flour mixture and stir until combined.
• In another small bowl, stir together 2 tablespoons sugar and cinnamon. Drop dough by rounded tablespoons, 1 inch apart, onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake until cookies are golden at edges, about 15 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer cookies to wire racks and let cool completely.

Steps:

• Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat; cook and stir dates and white sugar in the melted butter until thick and golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove saucepan from heat and stir in crispy rice cereal and pecans. Let mixture cool until easily handled, 5 to 10 minutes.
• Form mixture into small balls using your hands.
• Pour confectioners' sugar into a resealable bag; add date-nut balls and lightly shake bag until balls are coated.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 200°F.
• In a large bowl of an electric mixer, beat egg whites until foamy. With the mixer on high speed, beat in salt; then gradually add sugar, about a tableshppon at a time, beating well after each addition, until whites fold stiff, glossy peaks.
• Add vanilla and beat for 1 minute. Fold in dates and walnuts.
• Drop meringue mixture by rounded teaspoonfulls onto well-greased cooking sheets, spacing cookies about 1 inch apart. Bake in a 200°F oven for 1 hour or until outside is dry and set; cookies should not turn brown.
• Let cool on baking sheets for about 5 minutes, then transfer to racks and let cool completely. Store airtight.

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 225 degrees F.
• In a large bowl, using a hand beater, beat the egg whites, cream of tartar, salt and vanilla until soft peaks form. Gradually add the sugar and beat until the sugar dissolves and stiff peaks form, about 3 minutes. Gently fold in the chopped nuts.
• Drop the batter onto silicone mats or parchment lined baking sheets (will need 2) with a teaspoon, spacing at least 2 inches apart. Bake until the meringues are dried through, about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. The cookies will remove easily from the parchment or silicone mat when ready.
• Cook's Note: Do not bake on humid days. Dye these any color to suit a seasonal event. For orange cookies, add 5 drops of food coloring.

Steps:

• In a bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar; beat until stiff peaks form, about 6 minutes. Beat in vanilla. Fold in dates and pecans. , Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 in. apart onto lightly greased baking sheets. Bake at 325° for 12-15 minutes or until firm to the touch. Remove to wire racks to cool. Store in an airtight container.

Steps:

• Before making the meringue, whirl the almonds in a food processor fitted with the metal blade until finely ground. Add the cornstarch and whirl again. Make Meringue. Fold ground almond mixture into finished meringue by hand.
• Here, cornstarch insulates the meringue from the fat in the nuts, which would otherwise cause it to break down.
• Easy way to pipe out disks of a particular size: trace a plate or other object of appropriate size onto parchment paper. The turn the paper over and use the circles as your guide. Start piping in the center and form a tight spiral out to the edge.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350°F Grease a cookie sheet.
• Beat the egg whites in a large bowl on medium speed, till soft peak stage.
• Add the sugar gradually. beat till glossy stiff peaks form.
• Carefully fold in cardamom, dates and nuts.
• Drop mixture by the tablespoon onto cookie sheet.
• Bake for 10 minutes.

Steps:

• beat egg whites until stiff peaks form in a glass or aluminum bowl.
• fold in sugar and cocoa, mixing well.
• fold in nuts (if using them).
• using a spoon and a spatula place ~2 T lumps of the batter on an un-greased baking sheet. This is key--there must be no fat that touches the batter or else the meringues will collapse.
• bake at 200F for several hours (welcome suggestions on temp and time). I usually bake them for 2+ hours and then let them sit in the oven for several more hours until the insides are not gooey.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 300ºF, place rack in center of oven.
• Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Combine and sift together powdered sugar and flour into a small bowl; set aside.
• Add one tablespoon of sugar flour mixture to chopped dates and toss to coat. Use a little more (only if needed) to keep them from being too sticky.
• *Note: Do NOT use pre chopped packaged dates unless the pkg states that they are NOT coated with anything.
• Add salt to egg whites in a mixing bowl; beat to a stiff foam (almost to the soft peaks stage).
• Add the sugar-flour mixture to the egg whites, one tablespoon at a time, beating constantly, until stiff, glossy peaks form.
• Gently fold in nuts, dates and vanilla extract.
• Drop from tablespoon onto the parchment paper lined cookie sheet, about 2 inches apart.
• Shape into fingers, if desired, or leave in mounds.
• Bake for about 30 minutes. Cookies should be a very pale beige at most, not brown.
• Remove the cookies, ON the parchment paper, to cooling racks and cool completely.
• When cool, carefully peel the cookies from the parchment paper (a thin bladed knife or spatula helps)
• Store in an airtight container; use waxed paper between layers.

Steps:

• Easier to make than conventional cakes, these are always immensely popular with guests. For 3 layers, 4 by 16 inches and 3/8 inch thick. Preheat oven to 250°F, and place racks in upper- and lower-third levels. Butter the surfaces of 2 baking sheets, dust with flour, and shake off excess, then mark on them three 4-by-16-inch rectangles. Pulverize 1 1/2 cups toasted almonds or hazelnuts (be sure they are fresh!) with 1 1/2 cups sugar and reserve. Beat 3/4 cup (5 to 6) egg whites with a big pinch of salt and 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar to soft peaks (see page 100), and continue beating as you add 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract and 1/4 teaspoon almond extract and sprinkle in 3 tablespoons sugar. Beat to stiff, shining peaks. (This is now a Swiss meringue, which you could also turn into individual baked meringues.). By big sprinkles, rapidly fold in the pulverized nuts and sugar. Using a pastry bag, fill the 3 rectangles on the baking sheets. Immediately set in the oven and bake about an hour, switching levels every 20 minutes. They should barely color, and are done when you can push them loose. If not used within a few hours, wrap airtight and store in the freezer
• Serving Suggestion: chocolate hazelnut dacquoise
• Trim and even the edges of the layers with a serrated knife, and paint tops of each with apricot glaze (see page 103). Layer with chocolate-ganache (page 102) or chocolate-meringue filling (page 102), bringing it up and around the cake. Brush chopped nuts around the sides of the cake, and strew a decorative layer of shaved or grated chocolate on top. Cover and refrigerate for several hours, to soften the meringue and set the filling, but bring back almost to room temperature before serving.
• to whip cream
• For about 2 cups of softly whipped cream-crème Chantilly. Pour 1 cup of chilled heavy cream into a metal bowl set over a larger bowl of ice and water. To incorporate as much air as possible, either sweep a large balloon whip down and around and up and into the bowl with rapid strokes, or circulate a hand-held electric mixer with vigorous movements. The cream will not begin to thicken for several minutes. It is done when the beater leaves light traces on the surface and the cream holds softly when lifted.
• imbibing syrup-flavoring and moistening for layer cakes
• Makes about 1 cup, enough for 3 cake layers. Stir 1/3 cup hot water into 1/4 cup sugar; when dissolved, stir in 1/2 cup cold water and 3 to 4 tablespoons white rum, orange liqueur, or cognac or 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract. Sprinkle over each cake layer before spreading on the filling.
• sugar boiling for syrups and caramel
• Proportions are always 1/3 cup water for every 1 cup of sugar.
• Simple Syrup. For imbibing cake layers, for instance. Stir over heat until sugar has completely dissolved.
• The Thread Stage. Used for butter creams and Italian meringue. When the sugar has dissolved completely, cover the pan tightly and boil over high heat-never stirring-until when you rapidly take up a little in a metal spoon the last drops to fall from its tip into a cup of cold water form threads.
• Caramel. Continue boiling until bubbles are thick, then uncover the pan, swirl it slowly by its handle, and boil until the syrup has darkened into caramel. Pour at once into a separate pan to stop the cooking.
• To Clean Pans and Spoons. Fill pan with water, add tools, and simmer a few minutes to melt the syrup.