We’re rapidly approaching the season of sweets. It starts this Saturday (in the U.S.) with Halloween, and doesn’t end until some time in early spring. I’m not sure what I’m giving out to trick-or-treaters, although we don’t get too many of them because we’re not in a development-type neighborhood, which are very popular around the Seattle suburbs. Instead, we’re on a dark, quiet street, with a long, dark driveway surrounded by woods on either side. It’s great for lining with candle-lit pumpkins and makes for a slightly creepy experience.
While this recipe seems somewhat tricky to pull off, it wasn’t. I use either a dehydrator, or the oven. My dehydrator only reaches a high of 190 degrees F, so that’s the setting I use and the ghosts do fine.
Depending on your climate on how long you dried these, they will stay crunchy for a few hours or a few days.You can re-dry them in the oven or dehydrator, or seal them in a container of some kind when they’re cooled to room temperature to get or keep them crunchy. They’re fun in any case.
One thing I didn’t do is dip the bottom of each ghost in chocolate, which might help when picking if they get a bit sticky.
If you’re following SCD, use just honey, egg whites, lemon juice, and salt.
If you’re feeling really adventurous, you could add cocoa or vanilla to the meringue batter while whipping it. It’s on my list of things to try. I’ve also used natural yellow and red food dyes to make them orange.I added the food dye to the egg whites before I started to whip them.
Boo!
I’m so excited to have an SCD Halloween treat! I’ve been missing all of the fun holiday baking since starting the diet. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Ok, So my daughter wanted to try again to see if she could get the meringues to stay up and she whipped again until the batter seemed thick again, cause after adding honey it went flat, honey which she did not heat since it was not raw ( I figured there is no point using better, more expensive, raw honey for baking, since heating probably kills the good enzymes, vitamins… so I save for smoothies, dipping, putting on salmon after its out of oven…) AND…. they did turn out puffy and tall like in your picture, very cute and delicious, BUT after two days of stuffing our faces with yummy meringue cookies I told her we had to take a break and try some other recipes….. Just wanted to update you. Thanks again for all of your inspiration…I want to try your candied apples next and finally found popsicle sticks and have lots of yummy organic apples I just bought at Trader Joes…sooooo
Yeah! Yes, you do want to boil the honey, as you found out. I agree, I wouldn’t use expensive honey for project :). Good luck with the apples. The caramel can be a bit finicky as well.
I tried to make these, and just like michelle they turned out flatter, and chewier, not like the meringues you get in stores. I wipped them well, added the honey, then it seemed like all of the wipping i did just went away. During step number 4, do you add the honey then start making the meringues, or do you add the honey then whip them again? Also is it nesecary to heat, and re-cool the honey if the honey is not raw?
Hi Ann. I just updated the steps that you asked about. I did end up whipping them for quite a while, so I added on to the whipping time. I do whip the meringues a bit longer after all the honey is added, but not much longer. Just enough to keep them fluffy. Hope that works. Let me know if you have success or have more questions.
My daughter, age 13, and 2 friends made these for Halloween yesterday afternoon and they were delicious and cute. They turned out more flat and I was out so did not supervise,(not that I would have been allowed in kitchen anyway) but they were still a winner. Thanks for the timely, fun recipes for our household. Everyone enjoyed making and eating these.
Ah – yes, they might not have been whipped enough if they were flat. I love that the kids are cooking/baking!
Your ghostly meringues look just stunning! fabulously food!
Yum! I love meringues and I’ll bet my girls would adore these little guys.
Yum! I’d take my girls to your house for trick-or-treating!