Last night my roomies and I stayed in to bake after we dropped off my boyfriend at the airport. We had wanted to make white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, but found that we were too poor to afford a $12 jar of macadamia nuts. Thus, white chocolate chips still in hand, I decided to make these.

White Chocolate Chip Meringues

(Makes 2-3 dozen small meringue cookies)

• 1/4-1/3 cup white chocolate chips, with more for garnish
• 2 large egg whites
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (or lemon juice/white vinegar)

(Egg white to sugar ratio is 1/4 cup sugar to each egg white. Adjust as necessary. Eggs are easier to separate when cold. Be careful not to get any egg yolk in the whites—eggs won’t whip otherwise.)

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Add egg whites to a large mixing bowl. Whip eggs with a balloon whisk or electric hand mixer. When frothy, add cream of tartar, then slowly add sugar a little at a time. Once the eggs are light and fluffy and form peaks, add vanilla extract and white chocolate chips. Mix together until well combined.

Spoon egg mixture into a large freezer zip bag and cut a corner. Pipe mixture onto a foil baking sheet. When finished, garnish the top of each meringue with some white chocolate chips. Bake for about an hour and a half, or until the meringues look completely dry. Perfect meringues are white in color.

You can also bake them at 250 for 45 minutes if you are short on time. (The idea is to dry out the egg mixture until crisp and light, not to cook them, so don’t be tempted to turn up the temperature any more.) These meringues also taste delicious with nuts, particularly pecans and walnuts, and other types of chocolate chips. You can add food coloring for tinted meringues.