Imagine the tart creaminess of lemon meringue infused with orange zest sitting on a crisp, airy cookie ready to be devoured in one scrumptious bite. You’ll flip when you taste these cookies!

You know those beautiful Parisian macarons? Smooth and glossy, perfectly round and filled with creamy flavors? This cookie recipe allowed me to practice with the elements of the macaron – especially the meringue. And I got to play with a Kitchen Aid mixer for the first time.

Jack and I do our best to keep our kitchen to a minimum and have been debating about whether this appliance is worth its weight in counter space. Recently, we borrowed a Kitchen Aid mixer to take for a test drive. Our thoughts? This machine is pretty incredible. It beat the egg whites and confectioners’ sugar into a consistency we doubt we could have achieved by hand or even with a hand-held mixer — and after 20 minutes of steady mixing, no one was tired! The meringue was stiff and glossy and fluffy, just like it’s supposed to be. Even after scooping the meringue into a Ziploc and piping it out, it didn’t loose any volume. I think that was due to the mixer. The meringue baked perfectly, despite my inexperience in piping. We’ll see how often we use this mixer, but we’re sold on it for heavy mixing jobs.

The cookies took time in that leisurely Sunday kind of way. First I made the lemon curd and put it in the refrigerator to chill. After a while, I made the cookie shell. Then, when the shell and the curd were both cooled, I assembled the cookies. I found it easy to eliminate the evidence of my first attempts at piping, which were not pretty, but were tasty!  The technique which I settled on was to pipe the meringue in a spiral, starting in the center, with the last two spirals going vertical. This made a nice little cup for the lemon curd.

Flipped Lemon Meringue Cookies

Ingredients:

For Lemon Curd –

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg and 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 2 tsp orange zest
• 3 tbsp melted unsalted butter

For Meringue –

• 4 egg whites
• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar

Directions

1. In a medium pot, mix together curd ingredients, except butter (granulated sugar, egg and egg yolk, lemon juice and orange zest).
2. Whisk continually over medium heat until mixture thickens and coats a spoon (about 10 minutes). Stir  in melted butter.
3. Pour into a sealed container and refrigerate until cold.
4. While the curd is chilling, make the meringue cookies.
5. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
6. Take the 4 egg whites and beat on medium speed until they develop soft peaks (peaks will bend when you remove beaters)
7. Beat eggs whites at high speed while adding confectioners’ sugar by the tablespoon, making sure the sugar is mixed in before adding next tablespoon. The final product should have stiff peaks and be somewhat glossy and thick.
8. Pour into a piping bag with a small tip. (I used a Ziploc bag with the corner cut off).
9. Pipe a tight spiral from the center out, layering the outside spiral twice so you have about an inch-diameter cookie with a cup to hold the curd.
10. Bake for 60 minutes on a parchment lined baking sheet. Slight cracking is OK. The cookies should easily come off the parchment paper when finished. Let cool.
11. Fill meringue cookie with lemon curd.
12. Store in covered container in refrigerator.