I’ve never considered myself to be a huge meringue fan until the year my daughter and I first made Meringue Mushrooms to decorate a Bûche de Noël and we couldn’t help gobbling them up as we worked on decorating the cake. My daughter specifically requests them every year now because she likes them even better than the chocolate cake I usually put them on! But that’s easy to understand — they’re crisp, yet delicate and sweet, and they’re certainly cute as can be. And I find that for something with such an adorable presentation, they’re actually pretty simple to make. Here’s how you go about it.

To start, you’ll want to preheat your oven to just 200 degrees because meringue likes things low and slow. If your oven is too hot, you’ll get more of a tan tinge rather than a snowy white exterior. (That’s what happened with ours as our ovens run pretty hot, but they taste a little toastier and the hue works well for mushrooms, so I’m not complaining!)

While your oven preheats, you can start on your meringue, which calls for just egg whites, salt, cream of tartar, and white sugar. A stand mixer is a great tool to use here if you have one, because the whipping does take a while, but it’s certainly possible with a hand mixer. Just whip the egg whites, salt, and cream of tartar until they’re reached “soft peaks.” What you’re looking for at this stage is that if you lift the beater out of the bowl, the mixture will form a point that droops over. It’s a peak, but it’s soft, and can’t fully support itself.

At this point, you want to start gradually adding the sugar while still mixing and then continue beating until stiff peaks form. You’ll know you’ve hit “stiff peaks” when you can pull out the beater or whisk and the mixture stands firmly at a point with no drooping. Then, it’s time to pipe.

But do you want some good news? You don’t really even need a piping bag or a piping tip here — you can just use a zip-top bag with the end snipped off. If you do use a piping tip, use a very large round opening. Transfer the meringue to the bag and then start to pipe two different forms — stems and caps.

To pipe the caps, simply hold your piping bag still and squeeze the mixture out until it forms a circle. When it’s large enough, you lift up and flick the bag to the right to pull away. (You can come back later and smooth off any points with a wet finger if they bother you). You can go so far as to trace circles as a template to guide you, but I like all of my mushrooms to differ in size. I like them a little rustic! Keep piping caps until you’ve gone through about half of your meringue, and then move onto stems.

To pipe the stems, you’re going to squeeze out the meringue but slowly lift up as you go, forming a kind of “hershey’s kiss” shape. Some will be bigger and some will be taller and skinnier, but that’s fine — all mushrooms are different!

They’ll bake for an hour and a half. Let them cool completely before you assemble them, at which point they should have hardened.

To join those stems and caps, just use the point of a knife to hollow out a small divot in the bottom of the cap. Fill that divot with melted chocolate and then place the top of the stem in the chocolate-filled divot. Let them rest until that chocolate sets and acts as glue and you’re good to eat them all alone or use them to decorate another dessert.

I find they look cutest with a little dusting of cocoa powder and my favorite thing to pair them with is a Bûche de Noël, or Yule Log cake, which you can learn how to make here: Bûche de Noël Recipe.