I was actually going to call this blog Casablanca and Corn Starch.

You see, Casablanca and corn starch are intimately connected.

In the movie Casablanca, there is the classic song, “As Time Goes By.”  With the line that lives in your brain forever, “A kiss is just a kiss.”

Preposterous.  Kisses differ.  And the best are small, not too hot, and not too sweet.

Unromantic?  Well, no, now I’m not talking about people kisses.  I’m talking real kisses, the cookies, those meringue cookies that you may have tried, must love if you have, and may be stymied in making for yourself.

I have been making these cookies for decades, and often failed.  It’s ostensibly a simple beast: beat egg whites, add sugar, some food coloring, vanilla, and if you want chocolate chips.  I always want the chips.

The cookies have multiple names although I grew up calling them surprise cookies because of the chocolate chips.  Over the years, I’ve see many recipes calling for bewildering different proportions of egg whites, sugar, types of sugar, and — most confusing of all — very different oven temperatures and cooking times.  [Some recipes call for heating the oven, then turning it off and leaving the cookies in the cooling oven overnight.]

Here’s my problem in making them: they crack, they don’t cook all the way through, and to get them done in the middle the outside is hard and on the verge of burning.  The taste is then just awful.

I actually had the answer in hand last year.  Almost.  In his beautiful book The Modern Baker — which I promise to blog soon — Nick Malgieri has a recipe for Espresso Walnut Meringues.  He bakes at low heat, 300°, for just 30 minutes.  I tried the recipe because it has this surprise ingredient: cornstarch.  Why cornstarch?  I never figured it out.  The cookies are good, but I sometimes still have issue of texture or doneness.

Cornstarch?  Why that?    The rest of Nick’s ingredients are typical of the pattern for this cookie: 4 egg whites, a cup of granulated sugar, plus some nuts, chocolate, and espresso powder.

Frustrated, I went to Amazon and found The Egg White Cookbook by Blackstone and Leopold.  Here is their recipe:

Meringue Kisses

Ingredients:

• 5 egg whites
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• Pinch of salt
• ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons confectionery sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 225° and prepare two cookie sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium clean bowl, beat the egg white with cream of tartar and salt until soft peaks form.  Gradually add the sugar one tablespoon at a time until incorporate and stiff peaks form.  Stir in the vanilla.

Drop  by the tablespoon onto the cookie sheets about one inch apart.  Bake 90 to 105 minutes (depending on the humidity in the air that day) until dry but still soft inside.

I made this recipe and it works.  Authentically French, it is not sweet for there is little sugar there.  Five egg white and just over a half cup of confectionery sugar.

Ah, there it is.  How do you make confectionary sugar?  Add cornstarch to granulate sugar.  Nick was adding the cornstarch separately.  Blackstone and Leopold do it via the choice of sugar.

These meringue cookies are small.  A tablespoon of batter sounds like a lot, but it’s not.  The cookies are much smaller than I used to make.  And therefore they have a smaller mass to cook and there isn’t the problem of doneness: hard exterior with an inside that is not yet done.  No cracking.

The baking time was still an issue for me.  These were done at 70 minutes and perhaps could have been pulled even sooner.

And I have one matter of taste with them.  Too French for me.  Not sweet enough.  I do want my kisses sweet.  If you read up on confectionery sugar in The Joy of Cooking [test kitchen at Cooking by the Book], you are told not to substitute confectionery sugar for granulated because of texture and sweetness considerations.

So, I created my own hybrid version, using both kinds of sugars and adjusting the cooking time.  Here is the recipe.  It works, it’s delicious, and the cookies are done through and through.  These kisses are sweet enough .  They are still small, but if you feel deprived just kiss more than once.

I do recommend The Egg White Cookbook.  It has lovely recipes both savory and sweet.  What to do with egg yolks?  There’s always ice cream.  And I do have some cookie recipes that are yolk-only.  Keep reading the blog!

Brian’s Meringue Kisses

Ingredients:

• 3 egg whites at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• Pinch of salt
• ¾  cup confectionery sugar
• ¼ cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3-4 drops of food coloring if desired [green is good]
• 1 bag (11.5 oz) milk chocolate chips (Ghirardelli if possible0

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 225° and prepare two cookie sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium clean bowl, beat the egg white with cream of tartar and salt until soft peaks form.  Gradually add the sugars one tablespoon at a time until incorporate and stiff peaks form.  Stir in the vanilla.

Stir in the chocolate chips.

Drop  by the tablespoon onto the cookie sheets about one inch apart.  Bake about 45 minutes until dry but still soft inside. Store in an air tight container.