With all of the birthday celebrations going on lately, and the huge “CUPCAKE CRAZE” of 2009, I was thinking that I should explore some different options for those of us looking to indulge, without feeling the brutal waste of calories that come from those lovely cakes that abound. Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE CUPCAKES, but I am trying to lose weight and know my own weaknesses, so I choose to find alternatives when I can!

Revisiting foods that I have always liked to make, I remembered the light, melt- in-your-mouthiness of meringues… lemon meringue pie, butterscotch meringue pie… yummy but still high in calories when you’ve got a crust and loads of sugar involved.

As usual, I decided to come up with my own variation of a couple of old stand by recipes, both based on the Betty Crocker cookbook recipes for merignues and cream filling but with less than half the sugar!

Enjoy these 25 calorie per meringue treats – I know we will today!

One thing to note: I baked mine the day before, but they are really best made the day of, or at least, assembled the day of, but I was expecting today to be busy and figured I would save time and store them airtight in the fridge until taking them to the #FridayOffice PARTAY.  There will be comments later describing the resulting 18 hour later condition!

Halyma’s Sunnyside Meringues

Meringues:

3 egg whites

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1/8 cup raw sugar

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees F.  Line two cookie sheets with brown paper [ compostable] or aluminum foil [recyclable].

Beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until fluffy.  Add the sugar a spoonful at a time until fully beaten into the fluff. Use an electric mixer or get a workout with a large wire whisk – your choice!

Spoon out 24 blobs, about 2 inches/5cm in diameter, on the lined cookie sheets, creating a little dent in the centre of each.

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes for chewy cookies, 40 minutes for crunchier, and if you have time, let them sit in the oven with the door open for another few hours to really dry them out if you want crunchy ones.

Creamy Custard Filling:

1/4 cup raw sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 cup milk [ 1%]

3 egg yolks, beaten well, in a metal or glass bowl

Mix the sugar and cornstarch in a small saucepan and add the milk.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens to a gravy consistency.

Important step:

Pour the hot milk mixture into the bowl holding the beaten eggs and mix as you pour.  This keeps the sauce a smooth texture as opposed to letting it get clumpy.  Pour it all back into the saucepan and put it back on the heat to continue cooking  – keep stirring – until it reaches an almost pudding thickness.

Allow to cool for at least 30 minutes – stirring every once in a while to keep it smooth.

When ready to assemble,  spoon a bit of custard into the centre dent in each meringue, dividing the custard between them all.

Serve immediately if possible…

If you have leftover custard, you can drop spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and freeze it for “pudding pops”.

Hope you try these, and feel free to leave me some comments if you do!

I also made a chocolate butterscotch version, but they were not as good, so I’ll try that again and let you know sometime in the future!

Halyma!