The Crunch of Spring

I associate spring with crunchy foods: the snap of a fresh piece of celery and the crisp taste of peas.  As I posted last week, I love strawberry and rhubarb desserts in the spring, but I also tend to favor desserts that are airy, even if they aren’t ‘light’ in the caloric sense!  Enter the meringue–dead simple to make, light on the tongue, and with the perfect crunch.

While I was leafing through the 1967 cookbook, Cookies!, by Patricia White, I stumbled on her recipe for meringues, and after looking through my cupboards, I found some lemon extract, which suited my mood perfectly.  I think these would be lovely served with some ice cream after a barbecue!

I followed the recipe with a few, minor differences:

1. I added lemon extract instead of mint.

2. I used parchment paper instead of greasing a cookie sheet (do people grease cookie sheets anymore?)

3. I piped the meringue with the widest pastry tip I had because I liked the shape.

Here are the cookies before the went into the oven.

And here they are, ready to tempt the next person who walks by the kitchen!