Peppermint Bark Meringue Cookies

I've never really had a job where everyone gave Christmas gifts to everyone else (granted, I've only had about 3 jobs that lasted to Christmas and beyond. But still: giving something to everyone was never a thing). So when my co-workers at SHAG started handing out gifts last year, I was a bit unprepared. I decided to change that this year.

Since I had leftover egg whites from my pinwheels, I started to look for meringue recipes (meringues are easier and quicker to make than macarons). At first I wasn't sure what to focus on. Then I had an idea: one of my favorite flavors of the Christmas/holiday season is peppermint, specifically peppermint bark. So I decided to make peppermint bark meringues. I started to specifically look for peppermint bark meringue recipes but I didn't like what I found. Eventually, I realized I'd have to make my own so I switched to searching for chocolate meringue recipes with the goal of dipping them in white chocolate and crushed candy canes. Eventually, I settled on a recipe from Beyond the Chicken Coop.

Peppermint Bark Meringue Cookies (source)

Ingredients (I doubled the meringue recipe)

Meringues

• 
  4 egg whites
  
• ½ teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• ½ teaspoon peppermint extract (optional; my addition)

For dipping

• 1 bag white chocolate chips
• ~½ cup crushed candy canes (about 10-15 candy canes)

Directions

1. Place egg whites in a mixing bowl of a stand mixer and beat with the whisk attachment
2. When egg whites become foamy, add cream of tartar
3. Whisk on high speed until soft peaks are formed and then slowly add sugar while whisking (this is also when I added the peppermint extract)
4. Continue whipping until stiff peaks are formed (just like when making macarons)
5. Sift cocoa powder into meringue and gently fold in until all cocoa powder is mixed
6. Pipe 1 - 1 ½ inch stars onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (see notes)
7. Bake in a preheated 300°F oven for 45-60 minutes
8. Cookies are done when they pull off easily from the parchment paper and they are light and airy and dried all the way through
9. Prepare a double boiler with white chocolate chips (see notes). Place a piece of parchment paper on one or two cookie sheets. One at a time, dip meringue cookies in white chocolate and immediately in crushed candy canes. Let cookies set on parchment paper.

Between dipping and packaging, I ended up breaking a lot more than I expected (I knew they'd be delicate and tried to handle them with care. But breakage still happened). I think next year I'm just going to make M&M cookies and possibly throw in some sprinkles.

• I know the blog where I got the meringue recipe says to use tip 2D for piping but I used tip 1M instead because I wanted to do something different and have a different look than the source recipe. This backfired somewhat: I ended up not having as many meringue cookies as the recipe called for so I had to adjust how many cookies I gave each co-worker.
• There are essentially two ways to make a double boiler: buy one (there are a lot of options; here's one on Amazon, although you can probably find one at kitchen supply stores, maybe places like Target) or make one. I explained how to make one in the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies post two years ago (this time around, though, I didn't turn the heat down, just kept it up on medium so the chocolate hardened after a while).