Hey, I am baking a sort of shortbread cookie (no leavener) with a meringue Swirl inside and all recipes for this particular cookie call for 15 minutes at 175°C (347°F), which is the standard baking temperature for almost every Swedish recipe. Now, my issue is that the meringue swirl will brown too much for my liking, and the meringue swirl part always ends up a little chewy though I want it completely dry. I fixed the chewiness by lowering the temperature to 150°C (302°F) and after the 15 minutes were up, I put off the oven and allowed the cookies to sit in the residual heat with a slightly tilted oven door.

Still, the meringue part looks too brown to me, and so I wanted to ask the baking experts - what is the lowest temperature a cookie will still bake completely trough provides the cooking time is adjusted?

I usually bake meringues at about 100°C, but that's just egg whites and sugar. I know there is a certain gemperature where starches gelatinize, but the stated njmbers seem to differ. Does anyone here have experience with low temp unlevened cookie/biscuit baking? I will experiment some myself, but was curious to also read about other people's experiences.