Super Mario Meringue Clouds

The latest obsession around my house lately has been Super Mario Bros. The 5 year old has been reading the players guide and ordering politely requesting his Daddy to play (certain levels over and over, especially the hardest ones for my husband to complete - but he does it). When they got to the Meringue Cloud level, J kept pronouncing it "merengue", like the Caribbean dance. I tried to explain how it was pronounced and made the mistake of telling him it is a cookie that looks like a cloud. Cookie?! Did you say cookie?

Hung by the tongue, I knew I had to make them. I have had them on my to make list for awhile since they are non-fat and very low calorie. Yeah, maybe they would take care of my sweet tooth without too much damage to the waist line.

If you are on Pinterest, you have probably seen Meringue Ghosts. But, this cake I saw this morning blew me away!

This is from the King Arthur Flour blog. She piped the meringue into ghosts then inserted a glow stick into each one.  I however, did not want to go to that much effort. Heck, I didn't even want to go to the effort of piping them. Two spoons, one to scoop the meringue and one to scrape it on to the pan were good enough for me and my guys. Besides, I was making "clouds" not ghosts.

The batter itself is easy to make, but they take FOREVER to bake. Well not actually bake, more like dry in a low temp oven for 1 ½ hours and then sit in the oven for another 8 hours or more. This is definitely a time to "go big or go home". If you are going to the effort, make it count. Don't bother with anything less than four egg whites. Trust me on this, if you halve the recipe you will be regretting it once they are done or at least I did. Besides, they are so low calorie you don't need to feel guilty about having one or two... or six.

Another great thing about these is that you can add anything you want to them. My first batch was mint chocolate chip (a little peppermint extract and some mini chocolate chips). The second was vanilla tinted pink, because it is a law of food blogging that you blog at least one pink recipe in the month of October. Well, maybe not a law, but it seems all of the food blogs are loaded with pink this month for Breast Cancer Awareness. Pink and pumpkins, lots and lots of pumpkin recipes. Anyway, on to the recipe.

Until next time, happy eating.
~Audrey