A collection of home-grown recipes from my little kitchen to yours - mostly sweet, but some savory. Really whatever I've been mixing up...between family time, dirty diapers, tantrums, and cuddles...

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Chocolate Chip and Coconut Meringue Cookies


The challenge was: bring dessert to bible study that can accommodate a person with celiac disease (ie no gluten, ie no flour) and another person that is deathly allergic to dairy (yup, that means no butter *tear*)...oh, and another person that's allergic to nuts. Individually, none of these things are impossible, but together, I found this to be quite the challenge!

After a while of google-ing without finding anything remotely appetizing or dessert-worthy, I resorted to scouring my many bent-up and flour-covered cookbooks....lo and behold MERINGUE!  No dairy, no flour (score!) and no nuts.  Lets just say, I did a little dance in my 6 x 8 foot kitchen :)

So here it is, from my no-name, wedding present, chocolate cookbook.....I don't think you can get much easier that this :)

- 3 large egg whites (or 1/3 cup plus 3 tbs of egg beaters)
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 tsp cream of tarter
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 cups chocolate chips (and there are some kinds without any dairy, believe it or not!)
- 2 cups coconut
- Cooking spray





Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.  Beat the egg whites until they begin to get foamy, and then add the salt and the cream of tarter.  Continue beating until soft peaks form (when lifting up a spatula from the mixture, a peak forms that then flops over into a pretty little "Dairy Queen" curl, and then gradually add the sugar and vanilla.  Then beat until stiffer peaks form.  Using a spatula, fold in 1 1/2 cups of the chocolate chips and all of the coconut.






Line two baking sheets with aluminum foil and grease them with the cooking spray. Drop by small spoonfuls onto the sheets, leaving about 1 1/2 inches between cookies (they don't spread much).  I actually bought a small ice cream scooper for cookies like this - speeds up the process and keeps all of the cookies the same size so everything bakes evenly.  Use the remaining 1/2 cup of chocolate chips to press 3 or 4 chips into the batter of each cookie. 

Bake for 20 minutes until the edges get oh-so-slightly brown, and the top begins to crack.  Don't attempt to move cookies off the aluminum foil until they are completely cooled or they will crumble. 


These simple cookies were quite the success - no leftovers to take back home (sorry John!).  Who knew a dessert without butter could be so tasty???? 

Enjoy!

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