Step 1

Preheat your oven to 220 F (100 C).

Step 2

In the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, add your egg whites and splash of lemon juice. Start whipping until your egg whites look frothy.

Step 3

Add in your vanilla extract. We also added in a drop of red food coloring to get a subtle pink color. Slowly add your sugar one tablespoon at a time while the mixer is running. If you add it too quickly, the sugar will not dissolve and it will end up grainy!

Step 4

Once all the sugar has been added, keep whisking until you have reached stiff peaks - this can take a little while!

Step 5

Once you have reached stiff peaks, add mixture to a piping bag. We used a star nozzle to create the ridge shape!

Step 6

Pipe out cookies onto a parchment lined baking sheet (we ended up using two sheets). Try to keep everything the same size. Depending on the size you decide to make them, you could end up with around 40 cookies!

Step 7

Bake for about an hour. Try one after that time and if it is still soft in the middle and doesn't release easily from the parchment paper, you can let it bake for another 10 minutes. Once an hour or more has passed, turn off the oven but leave your meringue cookies to cool in the oven. This will likely take another 1-2 hours. After at least an hour has passed, you can open the oven a bit to let the heat dissipate. This whole process helps the meringues dry out fully with no cracking.

Step 8

Once the oven is cold, take out your meringues and enjoy!