chocolate fairy dust: a meringue's best friend

Meringues are pretty. Have you ever seen one? They’re shiny and glossy and so light you’d think they could float. Sometimes they’re angelically pure and white, but sometimes they’re flecked with little bits of mysterious heaven. For dark chocolate fans like myself those bits are the fairy dust that materializes when I take a sharp knife to a bar of quality dark chocolate. I'm really not sure there's anything more satisfying than chopping up good chocolate on a wooden counter. Sigh.
I strongly recommend that make these. You should probably do that right now, actually. They are just as delicious as they are purrrdy and they’re doing you a serious favor by using up all of those extra egg whites you know you have floating around. If you don’t already have extra egg whites, you’ll soon have some extra egg yolks. Use them to make challah or banana cream pie. Invite your friends over. Your buddies might even like you just a tiny bit more after you feed them meringues and bread and pie. Maybe.

In case you need any more reason to make these, the recipe is incredibly simple.

Dark Chocolate Flecked Meringues
(Loosely adapted from The Baker’s Dozen Cookbook)

3 large egg whites
1 cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ounces good dark chocolate, chopped very finely

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Pour egg whites into a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment and whip on low speed until foamy. Add the salt, increase the speed to medium-high, and whip just until soft peaks form. With the machine running, slowly add the sugar. Sit back and watch as your simple egg whites thicken up and become a gorgeous mountain of silky clouds. The whites will start begin to hold shape. Once the peaks are stiff and glossy, turn the mixer off and, using a rubber spatula, fold in the vanilla and the finely chopped chocolate.

Pour it all carefully into a Ziploc bag and cut a small hole in the bag’s corner. Squeeze the meringues into fluffy discs about 1 ½ inches wide and spaced 1 inch apart on your baking sheet. Place them in the oven and find something good and distracting to do for the next 45 minutes or until your meringues are firm but not browned and peal easily off the parchment paper. Cool completely on the baking sheets.

Wasn’t that magical? Thought so.

-EmB