I have really been doing good in cooking and baking from my stacks of cooking magazines and books lately, including my recent attempts at the Cook's Illustrated Creamy Chocolate Pudding and Chocolate Chip Meringues. The pudding turned out really, really well -- so much so, that I even ate a small portion with some fresh fruit, even though I don't really like pudding that much. The only alteration I made to this recipe was to substitute Ghiradelli's cocoa powder for the dutch-processed cocoa powder.
The meringues, which I made with the leftover egg whites from the pudding, unfortunately were a complete mess. In fact, perhaps they were the worst meringues I have ever made -- a shocking statement, I know. The problem with the meringues were that they were chalky, brittle, and the flavor was also a little off. I think the problem with this recipe though was not with its construction, but rather perhaps purely with my inability to follow it. I ended up halving the recipe because I ultimately had only two useable egg whites from the pudding. I also slowly poured in all of the sugar into the egg whites at once, instead of in two parts, so perhaps that is why the cookies ended up being so dry. In any case, I think I will stick to other meringue recipes in the future, including this chocolate meringue recipe.
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