Chewy, Gooey Chocolate Meringues

You need to make these. Sure, there's a little fuss, a little faff but seriously, make them, then come back and tell me it wasn't worth it. Go on, dare you.

I spotted the recipe here at bakerella and if I'd actually bothered reading the entire recipe before I started, I almost definitely wouldn't have bothered. Swiss meringue? No chew-inducing cornflour and lemon juice? It just didn't seem right. 

But I digress.

Chewy Chocolate Meringue

4 egg whites- these should weigh in at around 150g

290g caster sugar

18g cocoa powder

75g chopped dark chocolate

*ps. Apologies for the slightly funky weights, I've scaled down the recipe from the original, slightly unmanagable quantities and rounded up/down as much as I could get away with. I mean, who can reasonably be expected to eat 50-ish meringues. Only a madman, I say.*

*pps. I could share. I'm not going to share.*

1) Get a pan of water barely simmering as you finely chop your chocolate and weigh out your cocoa. Trust me, you don't want to have to be doing this in a minute. I've made these twice this week and both times had to call in an emergency chocolate chopper.
1.5) Realise you haven't preheated your oven to 175 degrees Celsius yet. Get it switched on in the nick of time...

2) Weigh your egg whites and sugar into a pyrex bowl and put it over the water in a bain-marie sort of situation. 

3) Get an electric whisk in on the action. Whisk until the mixture is light, fluffy and if you stick a (clean) finger in, you can't feel any sugar granules. 

4) Take it off the heatand keep whisking to firm peaks. 

5) Lick the beaters. Dear god, lick the beaters. They taste like the white bit in those chocolate teacake things I had as a child. 

6) Sift in the cocoa, add the chocolate and fold in gently. That chocolate's sharp, you know. 

7) Scoop small balls of the mix onto a baking sheet and put in the oven for 16-20 minutes, turning halfway. 

Try to hold off scooping them hot off the sheet, they really won't hold together and you'll burn your fingers. These are good warm, with the chocolate-cocoa filling oozing out of the cracks, cold with the chocolate setting to make the best chocolate chip anything you'll have eaten, and nothing untoward happens to them after 2 days in the fridge. I can't vouch for any longer, because I ate them all. Sorry. Only willing to go so far in the name of research.

 Someone else was more than a little interested. Sorry, not for cats, no matter how beautiful they are!