Chocolate Chip Meringue Cookies

My forays into homemade hollandaise left me with a surplus of egg whites. As much as I enjoy the odd meringue and Eaton's Mess, most of my favourite recipes tend to be the whole egg or egg yolk kind so I do have this surplus fairly often.

So, what does one do with a surplus of egg whites? Well, firstly you type "what to do with leftover egg white" into Google to find informative posts on Gourmet Sleuth and David Lebovitz's blog. It was David's blog that directed me to the recipe for Chocolate Angel Food Cake, which helped me use the 8 leftover eggs whites from making Momofuku's Crack Pie. This time nothing piqued my interest. It was pure luck (also known as foodgawker) that made me stumble upon this recipe for 30 Calorie Chocolate Chip Meringue Cookies from Dozen Flours.

These beautifully marshmallowy crispy cookies are light and marvellous and apparently are only 30 calories per cookies. I have to say that I don't believe it - nothing that tastes that good can be only 30 calories!! I don't care if they aren't 30 calories, they are worth the indulgence.

I have never really been a fan of meringue cookies. I've found the textures to be quite lacklustre or too much like a meringue. If I wanted a meringue I would have made one!! This recipe though it something completely different. These cookies are divine. Crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside like something out of a candy commercial, they are intensely chocolatey. This may be because I used my special Callebaut dark cocoa my mother bought me for my birthday, but whatever it was it worked! I also chopped some Lindt Dessert 70% Cocoa Specialty Cooking Chocolate instead of chocolate chips (can you see the calorie count increasing here?).

I'm a big fan of Nestle Plaistowe 63% Cocoa Couverture Chocolate in baking. It's my favourite and its incomparable to any of the other cooking chocolate readily available in supermarkets. In fact, I have been known to choose it over Callebaut chocolate blocks. I'm always open to new chocolate though, so when I saw the Lindt blocks hitting the shelves I had to give them a try. Unfortunately for my old faithful Nestle, I think the Lindt did have the edge. It had a smoother, creamier finish to it. I'd still happily use the cheaper Nestle but my local supermarkets seem to be phasing it out in place of the other (and in my opinion, inferior) Plaistowe chocolates.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get one or the other when I need it to bake. I'm stocking up just in case.

Back to the recipe, it was very easy and it made heaps. The recipe states that you will get 5 1/2 dozen cookies out of one mix and that sounds pretty accurate. I can only bake one tray at a time in my oven and I was baking these for a while.

Everyone loved this biscuits. They are so light and fluffy yet rich and chocolatey at the same time. I definitely have to make them again. Since I've just bought myself a blow torch and have big intentions of making lots and lots of creme brulee, I'm sure I'll have plenty of egg whites to use up.

See this post 30 Calorie Chocolate Chip Meringue Cookies on Dozen Flours for the recipe.