I have never liked meringue. It was dry and crumbly, and stood between me and the best part of whatever pie it was sitting on top of. I hated the fact that it tasted like nothing. But a few months ago, my opinion changed. I had made something requiring egg yolks (I don't remember what), and had the whites left over. I hate wasting food, so I found a cookie recipe for the whites only and gave it a shot. Those cookies were ok, nothing to write about for sure. The roommates offered feedback, and wished for something...fluffier.
So I bit the bullet and made meringues. And I loved them. It was a complete shock. I think the key with these particular meringues is the chocolate. You don't need much cocoa powder because there aren't any other flavors to compete. They also come out nice and chewy. They dissolve in your mouth a bit, leaving a nice, robust chocolate flavor.
This particular batch was made for a passover Seder. My friend hosted, and required a non-dairy desert. Since eggs aren't dairy, these would do. I thought about cake, but non-dairy, non-floured cake is hardly worth the effort.
Recipe
Ingredients:
3 egg whites, room temperature
3/8 tsp cream of tartar
3/4 c sugar
2-3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 300.
In a stand mixer, beat egg whites until they are nice and frothy. Add in the cream of tartar and the vanilla, and continue beating.
Once they are stiff, add in the cocoa powder and the sugar a tablespoon at a time.
Beat the egg whites a lot; you want to go well past stiff. If you've ever made something like this, you make think you've over beaten the egg whites. Nonsense!
Drop the egg white batter onto a cookie sheet in one tablespoon increments. Bake them for 35-40 minutes.
You can do a lot with this basic recipe, like stir in chocolate chips or dried cranberries. For the Seder I made one plain batch, but we ate them all. So I made another batch with coconut.
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