Chocolate Meringue Cookies » Girl Eats World

Tonight we have a potluck at my night job gig. Our theme is Italian. It is up for debate whether or not I failed in keeping with the theme by making chocolate meringue cookies. Originally, meringues were credited to an Italian chef by the name of Gasparini who invented the recipe in the 1700s in a Swiss town called merhrinyghen (Meringen). However since his accreditation, an older recipe for meringues was discovered and its origins is English! (Wikipedia link)

I found this easy recipe on Allrecipes.com for Chocolate Meringue Cookies. Ease, good reviews, and time required were the selling points that contributed to my picking this recipe. I started this recipe at 11:00pm last night. I was pretty impressed how simple the recipe was. Seeing these dainty cookies in bakeries, I’ve always imagined it to be the product of complicated and heavy recipes. Not at all! It’s basically just whipping egg whites with sugar! I was happy to find, that I, little novice baker, am capable of making light fluffy meringue cookies!

So here’s the recipe as taken from Allrecipes.com.

Recipe yields 3 dozen
Ingredients
3 egg whites
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions
1.Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C).

2.Combine egg whites, cream of tartar, and vanilla. Beat until the whites form soft peaks. Slowly add sugar; beat until stiff peaks form, and mixture becomes glossy. Fold in cocoa and chocolate chips.

3.Drop mixture by teaspoonfuls on to a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

I used a spoon to dollop the batter onto my cooking sheet. I’m sure if I learned how to pipe, it’ll look more like the traditional kiss shaped meringues. Pictured below is my finished products. Not so pretty but as airy and light and slightly chewy on the inside as expected.