Aside from decorated cookies, meringue cookies are one of my favorite things to make. I’ve posted lots of meringue recipes on my blog over the years, like these “mermaid” meringue cookies and these meringue cookie sandwiches flavored with hot chocolate mix and filled with peppermint chocolate ganache (soooo delicious!). This year I decided to make holiday spice meringue cookies flavored with Speculaas Spice and filled with cream cheese frosting.

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I ate about 10 of these in a row when I was working on this tutorial and several more after that. The combination of the crispy spiced meringue and sweet cream cheese frosting is just irresistible. At one point I meant to take a bite to show the inside of the meringue cookie to the camera and I forgot what I was doing and ate the whole thing – good thing I had plenty of extras.

Speculaas Spice seemed like the best way to encompass the flavors of the entire season without being too specific to either fall or winter (pumpkin spice and gingerbread spice weren’t cutting it for me this time!). And it doesn’t hurt that I am obsessed with speculaas (aka speculoos) cookies! I buy Lotus brand Biscoff in the store here in the U.S. and crumble them up to put in between cake layers with vanilla pudding and banana slices (you have to try it – it’s amazing). You can also use speculaas cookies to make cookie butter (or just buy the cookie butter already made!).

Speculaas Spice is a mixture of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, white pepper, anise, ginger, and my favorite of all, cardamom. You can certainly make your own spice mix, but I bought this Speculaas Spice from King Arthur Flour. It’s a bit pricey on Amazon, but it’s very potent and I only used a 1/4 teaspoon for this meringue cookie recipe, so I imagine it will last me a long time.

Meringue Tips

Meringue cookies need to bake at a low temperature for 1-1/2 to 2 hours, so make sure to give yourself enough time to make this recipe. To test for doneness, take the meringue out of the oven after 90 minutes and allow them to cool for a few minutes. They should feel dry to the touch and feel hollow when tapped. If they are still soft and sticky, put them back into the oven and repeat the test every 30 minutes.

Depending on the humidity, they could become sticky again even if they felt dry after coming out of the oven. I’ve found that layering them with parchment paper and keeping them in an airtight container overnight helps to make them crisp again. You can store the baked meringue cookies in the container at room temperature for up to 5 days and fill them with the frosting when you’re ready.

Once the meringue cookies are filled with the cream cheese frosting, they need to be served within a few hours because they can’t be refrigerated as that will make them very soft and sticky (still delicious, though).

These meringue cookies are a bit messy to eat since the frosting tends to get squished when you bite into them. I like to chill the frosting in the fridge before filling the meringue cookies to make the frosting a bit more firm.

Yield: 18-24

Holiday Spice Meringue Cookies

This combination of crispy spiced meringue and sweet cream cheese frosting is irresistible!

Ingredients

3 each (100 grams) egg whites
3/4 cups (100 grams) light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon Speculaas Spice
1/4 cup (57 grams) cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons (28 grams) butter, softened
1 cup (125 grams) powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Combine the egg whites with the brown sugar in a heat-proof bowl.
Place the bowl over a pot of simmering water and whisk constantly until the sugar dissolves.
Remove the bowl from the heat and beat the meringue on high speed until it is light and fluffy.
Add Speculaas Spice (you can add more or less depending on your preference).
Continue to beat on high speed until the meringue holds a peak.
Place the meringue into a large pastry bag fitted with a 1M star tip.
Pipe swirls of meringue onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Bake the meringue at 185 ̊ Fahrenheit for 90 minutes to 2 hours.
Make the cream cheese frosting by combining the cream cheese and butter.
Beat on high speed until the mixture is smooth.
Add the powdered sugar vanilla extract.
Beat the frosting until it is light and fluffy. Chill in the refrigerator to firm up for at least 1 hour (or you can keep it in the fridge for up to 3 days).
Place the frosting into a pastry bag with a round tip (I used tip 12).
Pipe the frosting onto a meringue cookie and sandwich it with another.