Orange Chocolate Meringues

Meringues...From fluffy and cloud-like to satisfyingly crisp, meringues are the perfect sweet accompaniment to a healthy lifestyle. Once you've mastered the basic meringue recipe and technique, the experimentation begins. Here is a meringue recipe I created to remind me of the dark chocolate orange candies that I used to receive in my Christmas stocking as a child, but the citrus taste makes it a natural for the summer as well.


Ingredients

2 large egg whites @ room temperature
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 C sugar*
1/2 tsp pure orange extract
1/2 tsp pure almond extract
1/2 C Ghirardelli 60% cocoa chips, finely chopped.**

Makes 10 servings

Instructions:

• Beat egg whites in a glass bowl with cream of tartar until stiff peaks form.


• Add sugar very gradually. Halfway through adding sugar, add the two extracts. You may reduce the amount of extract, but do not add more than one teaspoon TOTAL extracts. The extracts will tend to deflate the meringue. If you add too much extract you will wind up with flat meringues.


• Finely chop chocolate and fold into meringue.


• Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. I prefer making them 10 large servings, so each serving is very satisfying. However, if you are preparing this for a party, you may want to make meringue bites. This recipe makes 24-30 meringue bites, depending on the volume of your egg whites.


• Bake at 350 degrees until crisp. Remove immediately to a wire rack to cool.
  Store in an airtight container.

*-You can reduce the sugar to as much as 1/3 C, which will increase the healthfulness and produce soft meringues, or increase it to as much as 3/4 C, which will produce slightly sweeter meringues with a crisp outer shell and a delicate inside. I found 1/2 C the perfect compromise.

**-If you are interested in reducing the fat content of these tasty little treats, reducing the chocolate chips to 1/4 C changes the nutritional information per serving to 44 calories, 1.2 g fat, and 0 fiber.

Nutritional Information (per serving, for 10 servings, recipe as written): 60 calories, 2.4 g fat, 0.4 g fiber.