Meringue chocolate caramel roses

What do I do when I'm out of flour but still need to bake something for tomorrow? Meringue cookies, of course! Or, you know, go buy some more flour. Which I did. But the idea of meringue had already been planted in my head...

I've made a very similar recipe before, when I made my chocolate clouds. In fact, this is essentially the same recipe, with some tweaks.

While I did like the chocolate chips that were stirred through the meringue, they made the smooth meringue bumpy and lumpy. That's when I came up with the idea of placing something in the middle - a quick bit of Googling revealed that Hershey Kisses were a popular choice. Since chocolate and caramel always went well together, I settled on the caramel-filled Kisses.

I also wanted to make these cookies even more pretty and while watching Game of Thrones, I was inspired by House Tyrell's sigil - the rose. The Tyrells are one of my favorite families (that grandmother is BOSS). So, I added some red food coloring into the meringue and tinted a pretty pink.

I then transferred the meringue batter into a piping bag with a star tip and piped pretty rose-esque shaped meringue swirls onto the baking sheet. To add the Hershey Kiss in the middle, I first piped a little disc as a base to put the Kiss on and then piped around it to cover it completely with meringue.

The meringue did a pretty good job in insulating the candy inside and prevented it from oozing all over the pan. There were a few roses that I didn't completely cover and the chocolate/caramel did melt and leak out, but the damage was minor. The end result also turned out to be more of a gold color than pink - which was perfect, since the Tyrell rose is gold anyways!

As for the cookie itself, the texture turned out very nicely layered - the outside was crisp, the middle was chewy, and the middle was all gooey. As expected, it was light, airy, and delicious, of course!

Meringue chocolate caramel roses - makes about 30 roses
(Recipe adapted from Best-Loved Chocolate Recipes)

• 3 egg whites
• 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
• 3/4 cup (150 g) white sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp cocoa powder
• Food coloring (optional)
• ~30 Hershey Kisses (I used the caramel ones)

1. Preheat oven to 300F.
2. Beat egg whites (with cream of tartar) in a stand mixer at high speed. 
3. When soft peaks form, add the sugar, followed by the vanilla. 
4. Beat until stiff peaks form. 
5. Fold in the cocoa powder. 
6. Fold in food coloring and stir on low speed until even. 
7. Transfer meringue batter into piping bag. Pipe small discs onto baking sheet (lined with parchment paper).
8. Place a Hershey Kiss on each of the small discs. Pipe more meringue on top to completely cover the Kiss. 
9. Bake for 40 minutes until the outsides of the cookies feel dry to the touch. 
10. Cool and store at room temperature in an airtight container.
11. Enjoy!