Store-bought meringues from Trader Joe's made adorable, light-as-air treats at the low effort version of the Balloon party.
But for the high effort version of the party, I wanted something a little more special.
So I made my own meringues, and piped them in cloud shapes.
To make your own cloud shaped meringues, you'll need to whip up a basic meringue recipe. I used the same recipe I used for the soft serve ice cream cone meringues at the April Fool's Day Neapolitan ice cream party. Here is the link to the recipe and technique.
Once you have a nice, stiff meringue whipped up, it's time to make the clouds. Use a pastry bag (I like the disposable ones from KopyKake) and a large, round tip. Don't have a large, round tip? Eh, don't worry about it. It looks almost as good if you just snip off the bottom of the bag. The slight difference isn't worth a trip out to the craft store.
Now it's time to pipe. Don't over-think this. Just blursh out some lumpy, bulbous shapes on parchment paper. The best part about it is that there's no wrong shape, and this is what happens naturally when you make a mistake trying to do something fancy.
Bake, following the instructions from the meringue recipe. When cool, if you want them to look extra fancy and cloud-like, dust a little blue luster dust in the nooks and crannies of your clouds. I thought I'd like the very light blue dust, but that wasn't visible enough. I ended up liking the much darker Super Blue luster dust for this application.
One of the best parts about these treats is that they last forever. Well, I don't know about forever, but definitely weeks. So they can be done well ahead of the party, something I'm always looking for to make those last couple days of hectic party-prep more reasonable.