Part of my problem may have been my sweetener. For the peppermint meringues, I attempted to use powdered xylitol and although they LOOKED fantastic, they never firmed up enough to be removed from the parchment even after hours of baking. You had to scrape them off with a spoon, which my kids actually did quite happily, because they tasted great. My other problem is likely the fact that I never wanted to just make plain meringues, I wanted something fancified (also not a word, but it will suffice for now). I added cocoa powder for chocolate meringues and deflated my entire batch of beaten egg whites. I added a peppermint extract that was made with oil and, again, deflated my egg whites. You get the picture. I sometimes focus so much on coming up with something NEW and DIFFERENT that I don’t just try my hand at the basics.
So. Shannon has done the work for me and I love her dearly for this. I tried them myself this afternoon, following her method almost to the letter, and they turned out fantastic. They are crisp on the outside while being a little moist and chewy on the inside. They do get a little browned on the tips, so I think I need to play around with oven temps and baking times. And unlike Shannon, I didn’t find that I needed to leave them in the oven for hours to crisp up. But these are very minor tweaks. It should be noted here that we both used Swerve for our sweetener and as Swerve contains a few things other than erythritol (oligosaccharides), I can’t guarantee the results with any other kind of sweetener. But this is a really, truly auspicious beginning. And I have a lot of ideas with which to use this recipe. I mean a LOT! So stay tuned, as you are sure to see many renditions of Shannon’s wonderful meringues on my blog.
Shannon’s Sugar-Free Meringues (Low Carb and Gluten-Free)
Ingredients
- 4 egg whites, room temperature
- 6 tbsp Swerve sweetener, or other powdered erythritol
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
- 1/8 tsp salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 250F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Arrange oven racks on second lowest and second highest positions.
- In clean glass or metal bowl, combine egg whites, Swerve, vanilla, cream of tartar and salt. Beat on medium high until medium stiff peaks form and mixture becomes somewhat glossy. Do not beat until stiff.
- Spoon or pipe mixture into 20 to 24 large meringues.
- Bake for 18 to 20 minutes at 250F. Then reduce oven temperature to 200F and continue to bake for another 18 to 20 minutes, until crisp and tips are just starting to brown.
- Turn off oven and let meringues it inside for 2 hours or longer.
- Remove and carefully peel off parchment.
Notes
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I just made them using Xylitol and they didn’t go crispy, tasted good but too soft to even take of the paper. Can you get Swerve Sweetener Powdered in Woolworth’s in Australia? Will try again with Swerve if I can get it in Supermarket.
I think Natvia is your best option.
A word of warning. The first time I tried this I was out of erythritol and used xylitol instead. I am proud to announce I thus invented the most astonishingly disgusting substance I’ve ever put in my mouth. If I hadn’t made it myself I would have sworn it contained melted gumboots. You know how meringue flattens with a crunchy snap between the roof of your mouth and your tongue, and then just melts away? These collapsed into little bouncy lumps … and then stayed like that. No melting. At all, even under scalding hot water. Imagine rubberized scrambled eggs, slightly sweet. GAAAKKK!
– the recipe as given, however, was lovely.
So not sure about these being “Shannon’s” and if she did all the work!
The exact recipe is on the Swerve website, almost word-for-word. Looks like someone on either side copied without giving credit!
https://swervesweet.com/recipes/peppermint-meringues
Um…. no. Because both of these are me. Shannon gave me permission to use her ideas (I did change things a bit) and then I wrote a peppermint version for Swerve.
Is this stiff enough before cooking to spread on top of a pie or cheesecake and form peaks?
Yep, sure is! Check out my lemon meringue pie recipe… https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/best-low-carb-lemon-meringue-pie/
I made a hollandaise sauce for my asparagus for Easter Dinner and I used the leftover whites to make this recipe, I used Powdered Swerve, and I added lemon juice and folded in lemon zest before baking and they were PERFECT! I follow a Keto diet and these were perfect for me, others in my family that don’t follow the Keto diet loved these as well, thanks for a great recipe!
Does recipe call for Swerve Granular or Confectioners? Because the link you provided brings be to granular, but then I see you mention Confectioners in comments? Please advised … thank you in advance.
This is an old recipe and the links on Amazon change sometimes. It’s powdered.
Thanks for your prompt response 🙂
Welcome. It’s one I need to update!
Thanks for this superb information. I have actually had a couple of failed attempts in the past but after reading this, I am good to go. I must say the recommendations from other readers are also quite helpful. There is nothing as attractive to my palates as sugar free, but please don’t ask me why.
Just made these for Passover. Excellent!
These was fantastic and the first time I used erythritol. The brand I had was Erysweet. I had so many leftover frozen egg whites from other recipes. These literally melted in my mouth. I used my convection setting, same temps and they were perfect. Thank you.
What a great, easy recipe! I made it with the vanilla – a little tricky to fold in but I was patient. I’m a disaster with a piping bag, so I just gently scooped drops and they turned out fine.
Oh my Oh my….sorry….these little pillows of deliciousness are marvelous and soooo simple!!! I can’t thank you enough for sharing. I love your recipes.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I made them last night and they were DELICIOUS!!!
Is it possible to use this to make a sugar free meringue pie crust? If so, how? If not, do you have a recipe for a meringue pie crust,sf?
Made my first batch of these meringues and they were melt in the mouth delicious. My husband’s only complaint was they were not big enough. So guess I will be making these regularly and in double batches.
I made these and instead of vanilla i used the same amount of Jordans Peppermint Bark syrup, that turn out perfect and delicious.
Sounds delicious!
Sorry, for repeating the question about BochaSweet; I didn’t see your previous response. Thanks.
Glad you saw it. I need to update this post soon to include some of that info.
Love the recipe . I use BochaSweet for most of my desserts. Do you think this will work with BochaSweet? It’s so expensive that I don’t want to waste it if it doesn’t work.
Has anybody tried lemon extract ?
It should work fine.
So I tried another meringue recipe last night with powdered erythritol and it was SO incredibly sweet i couldn’t stand it. Normally the cooling of erythritol doesn’t bother me, but oh man it was bad. SO I went looking on your site to see if you had tried it with Bochasweet and found this recipe. So I’m trying it again with less erythritol- i only used 2 T and a little extra. And my recipe made about 50 meringues- I felt like they were pretty big too! They’re in the oven and I’ll let you know how they turn out 🙂
You cannot make meringue at all with Bocha Sweet. Even a single tbsp of it will keep your meringues from firming up. Trust me, I’ve tried several times.
Threse were beautiful! I did however notice that my interior was slightly chalky & aarid as opposed to moist and chewy. I used Lakanto Monkfruit Sweetener (Powdered) and wonder if the Monkfruit extract played a part (even thought it’s made from Erythritol)? If that would not affect texture, I will try baking for a little less time. Thank you so much! Can’t wait to make them again xoxo
Update! I made them again and they were perfect! This time I made sure they were bigger in size (first batch were minis). Secondly, I baked them at 225 degrees farenheit for 15 minutes then lowered temp to 200 and baked for 20 minutes. Then, turned off the oven and let cool an additional 30 minutes (in the oven). They came out airy and crispy on the outside and slighty moist on the inside with no crumbly aftertaste! I will definitely be baking these again!
Thank you for commenting about monkfruit! I just tried this recipe with Swerve but the sweetener has WAY too much of a cooling affect–I ended up having to throw all the cookies away because it was too weird! I’d been wanting to try it with monkfruit but was curious on cook time and texture. Will give this a go!