A Hobbit's Delight

A few weeks ago I was trying to come up with a Lord of the Rings themed dessert/snack to bring to a costumed event, as Conner and I were both attending as LotR characters. (Frodo Baggins and Arwen Evenstar, to be precise.) So I got to thinking... what do hobbits and Elves like to eat? Once I began thinking about hobbits, two things instantly came to mind: mushrooms and beer! Obviously, beer was out of the question, but the idea of doing mushrooms sounded good – especially since I happen to know how to make meringue mushrooms, which could almost be thought of as having a similar taste and texture to lembas, the way-bread of the Elves! Of course, these mushrooms could be used for any fallish, woodland, fairy, or garden theme – or anything that involves mushrooms!

ingredients:
one half cup of egg whites
one quarter of a teaspoon of cream of tartar
one quarter of a teaspoon of salt
one teaspoon of vanilla extract
one cup of white sugar
white chocolate chips (for assembly)

the first thing to do is to separate the egg whites from the yolks.
(if you have any ideas on what to do with the leftover yolks, i would be highly interested in hearing them!) 

beat the egg whites until they are foamy...

then add the cream of tartar, salt, and vanilla, and beat until the meringue will support soft peaks.

  

gradually add sugar while still beating...

...until the meringue can form hard peaks.

Using a Ziploc bag or other such piping device, pipe the meringue onto baking sheets in the shapes of caps and stalks. the caps are easy - just make little mushroomy domes of whatever size you like! The cone-shaped stems can be tricky... I had a world of trouble with mine, as the meringue kept falling over, basically making oddly-shaped caps instead of the nice pointy peaks I wanted to see. Aargh...



Once your baking sheets are all filled up, put them in the oven at 225 degrees for an hour or so. (I had to add ten minutes for ours.) The caps tend to get a sort of cracked effect on top when they are done, which I think looks quite nice for mushrooms.

Did I mention that a layer of parchment paper on the baking trays might be a good idea? No? Well then... once you manage to pry the pieces off the trays, sprinkle them with cocoa powder.

Now for the assembly process! Take a cap and hollow out a little hole for the tip of your stalk. Fill the hole with melted white chocolate, insert a stalk, and let the ''glue'' cool completely to ensure that the pieces stay together. A few hours later... voila! You have incredible edible mushrooms!

Now all you need is something equally awesome to put them in... Mom made this wonderful basket and sign for ours!

A hobbits delight... mushrooms from Farmer Maggot's field... perfect!!!

 

A note added on February 28th: I made these mushrooms again yesterday and realized that the photos I provided for the meringue-making process are not quite ideal. It was a rather humid day when i took those pictures back in October and the meringue kept falling flat. So, if you choose to make these little treats, I would recommend doing so on a dry day, whipping the mixture at a very high setting, and not trying to emulate the look shown in my photos. :)

As to the quantity of mushrooms made by this recipe: yesterday I made two batches, forming stalks with the first and caps with the second, and when all the pieces were assembled there were about seventy-five completed mushrooms. Modify the quantity according to your needs.