French Meringue Rainbow Kisses

I'm going to using some coloured Meringue kisses on top of the very last first birthday cake I ever need to make! It's been a while since I've made French Meringue so I thought I would share my little practise run.  I decided to do some rainbow ones for this tester, which in all honesty look like big sweet toothpaste meringues! Note to self, don't use colours that remind you of toothpaste for on top of the first birthday cake!!!!!

What you need...

• 2 Eggs, using the whites only
• Caster Sugar
• Vanilla Paste
• Food Colouring

How you do it...

• Heat your oven to 100 degrees C
• Place a mixing bowl onto your kitchen scales, separate your eggs, measuring the weight of
  
  the whites, ditch the yolks, you only need the whites. My egg whites weighed 6o grams
• Now in a separate bowl measure out the caster sugar, it needs to be double the weight of the egg whites. I measured out 120 grams.
• Start beating the egg whites on low, once they start to bubble up turn the speed up to high.
• When the eggs whites have because stiff and firm start adding in the sugar a tablespoon at a time. When the sugar is all in, add a teaspoon of Vanilla Paste.
• Beat on High for 5 minutes.  When the time is up check that the sugar is dissolved by rubbing a small amount between two fingers, if it still feel gritty continue to beat it.
• When it is ready it will be glossy and smooth.
• Place a large piping nozzle into a piping bag, fold the edges of the bag down and place the bag into a glass so it is standing up, this makes the next step easier
• Use and butterknife to place strappings of food colouring vertically along the piping bag
• Carefully fill the bag with the Meringue 

• Cover a baking tray with baking paper
• To pipe the Kisses hold the bag upright about an inch from the tray, gently squeeze the bag while holding it steady then pull the bag upwards to finish off the Kiss
• Pop the Kisses in the oven for 35 minutes, you'll know they are ready when they lift easily off the tray
• They cool extremely quickly so no real need to worry about moving to a cooling rack, I left them for 5 minutes then popped them straight onto a Cake.