Some people call these “Meringue Shell Cookies.” My grandma called them “Forgotten Cookies,” so I do too.
They are super easy and delicious. The shell is crunchy and sweet. The chocolate chips are rich and fudgey. They completely melt in your mouth. Their glossy white shells just say “Christmas.”
The best part is that these cookies only have 5 ingredients. You may even call them health food!
Here’s the ingredient list:
- Farm Fresh eggs from pastured chickens (just plain eggs will do in a pinch)
- Real Salt
- Cane Sugar
- Vanilla
- Chocolate chips
- A pinch of Cream of Tartar (optional)
You only need egg whites to make these cookies, not the yolks. To begin I seperated the eggs. Actually, that’s a lie. I didn’t separate any eggs. I made ice-cream last week. I used 16 egg yolks to make the ice-cream and had 16 egg whites left-over. This is the perfect recipe if you have 16 egg whites sitting in your refrigerator, are sick of eating egg-white omelette’s, and need to use up egg-whites.
Put your egg whites into a giant bowl and beat them to death with a mixer. You want stiff peaks. Big stiff peaks.
Once they are at maximum fluffiness and peakiness – add the vanilla, salt, cream of tartar and sugar. Slowly beat in the sugar a little at a time. Continue beating this until the peaks are stiff. You can not over-beat this – so go gangbusters.
Last, gently fold in your chocolate chips with a rubber spatula.
Then you dollop them onto an ungreased cookie sheet. You can place these cookies very close together because they will not rise or spread while baking. Correction: they will not spread as long as you don’t grease the cookie sheet. If you grease the cookie sheet, then your cute dolops will flatten like pancakes and you will have Forgotten Saucers. Which I may have done. Maybe.
This is where the “forgotten” part comes in. Put the pans of cookies into an oven preheated to 250 degrees. Turn it down to 200 degrees. Bake for 2 hours at 200. Then turn the oven off and “forget.” We make these cookies in the evening after dinner. Pop them into the oven at 6:30. Turn off the oven at 8:30 and don’t think about them until tomorrow. Forgotten.
In the morning you will have perfect, crispy, Forgotten cookies for breakfast! Considering the ingredients (especially if you use pastured eggs, cane sugar, and bittersweet chocolate chips) these are better for you than a lot of breakfast options out there (think poptarts and fruit loops – gag).
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- 4 egg whites
- 1 cup cane sugar
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
- 1 cup chocolate chips
Ingredients
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Whip egg whites until fluffy. Add salt, vanilla, cream tartar. Add sugar slowly while beating. Beat until stiff. Fold in chocolate chips. Bake 250 2 hours & turn off oven. Leave in oven 3 more hours or overnight.
Cookies should be crisp and melt in your mouth. Exceptionally humid weather can cause these cookies to be a bit chewy. To encourage crispiness you can put these back into low oven (180 degrees) until crisp.
*This recipe is easily doubled. I usually double it when I make it.
