Suspiros – A Costa Rican Meringue Cookie

Published on Mar 5, 2024 Modified: Mar 3, 2024 by Alexandria Drzazgowski. This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Suspiros are a simple, light cookie flavored with just a hint of lime juice. This dessert is the perfect mix of cookie and candy just sweet enough to satisfy your sweet cravings. 

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Suspiros are delicate meringue cookies that melt in your mouth with a sweet, light flavor that will leave you wanting more.

This traditional Costa Rican treat is made with just four simple ingredients: Sugar, cream of tartar, lime juice, and egg whites. The egg whites are whipped until fluffy soft peaks form, flavored with sugar and lime juice. When baked, they become crispy while still maintaining their air-filled interior.

When the first bite melts onto your tongue, you’ll instantly know why this dessert is so popular. It’s addicting. The light, sweet but citrusy flavor and the melt-in-your-mouth crispy texture make it impossible to stop at just one.

Suspiros are the perfect treat to add to your dessert table or deliver as gifts. They are sweet, cute, and customizable with different colors and flavors.

Recipe Origins

The word Suspiros means “sigh” in Portuguese, referring to the noise you make when the love of your life passes by–or when you get your first taste of this delicious treat.

In Honduras or El Salvador, they are also sometimes called espumilla, or “little foam,” which is also a very fitting name. On my blog, Espumillas references an ice cream textured meringue from Ecuador.

Suspiros have been popular in Costa Rica for centuries, served for special occasions like Christmas, Easter, weddings or birthdays, but their exact origin is unknown. 

Some historians believe they may date back to 17th-century Italy or Spain, but the more romantic story is of a poet named José Gálvez Barrenechea whose wife Amparo Ayarez made him the dessert. After tasting the light flavor and texture he described it as “a soft and sweet sigh of a woman.”

In Brazil, you may often find Suspiros in the shape of lips, like a tiny, light kiss.

Why Make This Recipe

1. Simple Ingredients: Meringue isn’t too difficult to master and these meringue cookies call for just four ingredients. 
2. Customizable: These cookies are simple and cute on their own, but you can also add different colors and flavors for different occasions. Add a little pink food coloring for Valentine’s day or some red for Christmas. Sprinkle the top with some powdered sugar for some extra cuteness. Whatever the occasion, Suspiros are picture-perfect!
3. Taste of Costa Rica: These delicate cookies are available in bakeries all over Costa Rica, but Suspiros may be harder to find for sale in the United States. This Suspiros Recipe makes it easy to enjoy this sweet treat at home!

What Do You Need to Make This Recipe

Ingredients 

Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Scroll down to the recipe at the bottom for quantities.

1. Egg Whites: This recipe was tested using fresh egg whites. Carton egg whites might result in a softer meringue that takes a few tries to master. 
2. Granulated Sugar: For an even smoother meringue, feel free to use caster sugar. You can even make your own caster sugar by pulsing the same amount of granulated sugar in a blender for a few seconds until it is thinner granules (but not all the way to powdered sugar yet).
3. Cream of Tartar: This stabilizes the meringue, which speeds up the whipping process and makes a glossier texture. Cream of Tartar does this by preventing the egg proteins from sticking together, which stabilizes the tiny bubble in the meringue. 
4. Lime Juice: Lime juice is necessary for authentic Costa Rican Suspiros but you could also use vanilla extract or lemon juice to switch up the flavor. Use fresh lime juice for the best flavor.

Tools

1. Electric Mixer
2. Piping Bag and Piping Tip: You can also just spoon the batter carefully onto parchment paper to form meringue kisses but they will not be as uniform.

How to Make This Recipe

Step One: Prepare the batter

Boil a small pot of water on the stove. 

Wipe down the bowl of a standing mixer with a paper towel coated in distilled white vinegar. 

In the bowl, add the egg whites and the granulated sugar. 

Pour the boiling water into a small bowl and place the stand mixer with the egg whites and granulated sugar on top of it. Whisk the egg whites and sugar together over the residual heat until the sugar dissolves. 

Step Two: Whip

Lock the bowl into the stand mixer and mix at medium speed for about 1 minute. Add the cream of tartar and the lime juice and then continue mixing on high speed until you reach stiff peaks. 

Step Three: Bake

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper 

Put the egg white mixture into a piping bag with a piping tip. Pipe small swirls of meringue onto the parchment paper to form the Suspiros. 

Place the cookie sheet in the oven and bake for about 60 minutes. 

When the 60 minutes is up, turn off the oven but allow the suspiros to remain in the oven until they are completely cold. 

Serve and enjoy! 

Recipe researched using Nika Buchrieser Patisserie 

Expert Tips

• You can pipe a bit of meringue on the underside of the parchment paper corners so that the parchment paper sticks to the cookie sheet. 
• It is possible to under mix your meringue which may cause your cookies to fall flat.
• Suspiros are best served the same day they are made. They will quickly lose their crispness if there is too much humidity in the air. Store in an airtight container.

Why are My Meringue Cookies Cracking? 

Cracked Suspiros will still taste delicious, but if you are going for a picture perfect cookie, you may want to avoid cracks. There are a few reasons that your meringue cookies could be cracking: 

1. Oven Temperature: If the oven is too hot, your meringue could crack. Try lowering the oven temperature next time. 
2. Temperature Change: If you remove the meringue from the oven too quickly and the cookie goes from hot to cold, it could shock the meringue into cracking. To alleviate this, turn your oven off and then leave your cookies in the oven until it is completely cool. 
3. Overwhipping: Overwhipping could add too much air into your meringue texture, which could cause cracking.
4. Too Much Liquid: Make sure your bowl and utensils are completely dry and that you only add a little bit of lime juice! 

FAQs

Did you enjoy this Suspiros recipe? If so, make sure to check out these other recipes I picked out just for you: