Double Chocolate Meringue Cookies
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Delicate and crisp on the exterior and super fudgy on the interior, these chocolate meringue cookies melt in your mouth!
No flour, no butter, and yet these are delicious chocolate cookies — delicate and crisp on the exterior and super fudgy on the interior. The recipe is adapted from Alice Medrich’s wonderful cookie book, Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies (Artisan, 2010). Unlike most chocolate meringue cookie recipes, which call for cocoa powder and melted chocolate, Medrich’s version uses only melted chocolate, which results in intensely chocolate, light-as-a-cloud, melt-in-your-mouth cookies. And if you’re a fan of meringue, chocolate, and/or flourless desserts, I bet you’ll also love my Chocolate Chip Meringue Cookies and Double Chocolate Pavlova.
“Phenomenal flavor–pure deep dark chocolatey fudgy deliciousness…yet so light they melt in your mouth.”
What You’ll Need To Make Double Chocolate Meringue Cookies
- Semisweet Chocolate: Provides a rich, deep chocolate flavor. The chocolate plays a central role in the cookies so be sure to use best quality, such as Ghirardelli.
- Egg Whites: Create the meringue structure and give the cookies their fudgy texture.
- Cream Of Tartar: Stabilizes the egg whites and helps them hold their shape.
- Vanilla Extract: Adds a hint of sweetness and enhances the chocolate flavor.
- Sugar: Sweetens the cookies and helps create a glossy meringue.
- Milk Chocolate Chips: Add bursts of creamy chocolate throughout the cookies. Use best quality, such as Ghirardelli.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
Step-By-Step Instructions
Begin by breaking the chocolate into small pieces into a microwave-safe bowl.
Gently melt it in the microwave by blasting in 20-second intervals, stirring in between. Pull the chocolate out of the microwave when it’s about 75% melted.
Stir, allowing the residual heat in the bowl to melt the chocolate completely. This method keeps the chocolate from scorching.
Set the chocolate aside and separate the egg yolks from the egg whites. My method is to crack the egg in half, and then pour the egg from one broken shell into the other, letting the white fall into the bowl below while keeping the yolk intact in the shells as I pour. Be sure that not even a trace of egg yolk gets into the egg whites; even a tiny bit of fat will prevent them from stiffening. (Additionally, be sure your bowl and beaters are squeaky clean, and avoid plastic bowls which always hold a trace of residue.) Discard the yolks or save for something else.
Combine the egg whites with salt, cream of tartar and vanilla and beat until soft peaks form.
Beat until soft peaks form when you lift the beaters out of the mixture.
Gradually add the sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form. As you can see, stiff peaks hold their shape when you lift the beaters out of the bowl.
Add the melted chocolate and chocolate chips.
Gently fold together, taking care not to deflate the egg whites.
Fold until the mixture is uniform in color, but no more.
Drop mounds of batter on parchment lined baking sheets.
Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the tops are crisp but the insides are gooey and soft when you press on them.
My only changes to Alice Medrich’s recipe were to add a pinch of salt and swap out the walnuts for milk chocolate chips to make them kid-friendly.
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Double Chocolate Meringue Cookies
Delicate and crisp on the exterior and super fudgy on the interior, these chocolate meringue cookies melt in your mouth!
Ingredients
- 6 ounces semisweet chocolate (best quality, such as Ghirardelli)
- 2 large egg whites, at room temperature
- ⅛ teaspoon cream of tartar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- Pinch salt
- ¼ cup sugar
- ½ cup milk chocolate chips (best quality, such as Ghirardelli)
Instructions
- Set two oven racks in the middle positions and preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Break the chocolate into small pieces into a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave in 20-second intervals, stirring in between each bout of heat, until about 75% melted. Stir until smooth, allowing the residual heat in the bowl to melt the chocolate completely. (This technique ensures the chocolate mixture will not get too hot and scorch.) Set aside.
- In a large bowl, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar, vanilla and salt until soft peaks form when you lift the beaters (the peaks should be just starting to hold, and will melt back into themselves after a second). Gradually add the sugar, continuing to beat until stiff peaks form (the peaks will stand straight up when the beaters are lifted from the mixture). Pour the warm chocolate and chocolate chips into the bowl and fold with a spatula until the batter is uniform. Do not overmix.
- Immediately drop heaping tablespoons of the batter about 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the cookies look dry on the surface but are still very gooey inside when you press on them. Let the cookies cool for a few minutes on the baking sheets, and then transfer to a rack to cool completely. Enjoy on the same day or carefully wrap in an airtight container (don't stack them as they crumble easily).
Nutrition Information
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- Per serving (18 - 20 servings)
- Serving size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 67
- Fat: 3 g
- Saturated fat: 2 g
- Carbohydrates: 10 g
- Sugar: 9 g
- Fiber: 1 g
- Protein: 1 g
- Sodium: 21 mg
- Cholesterol: 1 mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
Gluten-Free Adaptable Note
To the best of my knowledge, all of the ingredients used in this recipe are gluten-free or widely available in gluten-free versions. There is hidden gluten in many foods; if you're following a gluten-free diet or cooking for someone with gluten allergies, always read the labels of your ingredients to verify that they are gluten-free.
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Just made them & they turned out great! Very quick and easy.
The yield was only about 20 cookies, not 32, using a tbsp. of batter per cookie. Maybe longer beating of the eggs & sugar would have increased the volume of the batter?
Hi Nancy, Did you use large eggs? Otherwise, could be a few things…did you measure the tablespoons? Even using heaping tablespoons will result in significantly less cookies. (For the record, I would never actually measure my cookies; I only mention it for the sake of figuring this out :)) You may need to beat the eggs and sugar a little longer…also, stirring instead of folding the mixture could deflate the batter a bit. Hope that helps and glad you enjoyed them!
Thanks for the suggestions. I did use large eggs, but I can see how slight variations in size can make a big difference. I guess this means I’ll just have to make another batch of these delicious cookies, with your other suggestions in mind, and see what happens! Thanks!
Can I freeze these?
Hi Sue, I’ve never tried freezing these cookies so I can’t say for sure, but I think they’d lose their delicate texture if frozen.
I made these yesterday!!! OMG they are unbelievable. Will make them often
You’ve just made me and my three daughters very happy. Yay! This looks fabulous. Can’t wait to make them. Thank you for the recipe.
For Passover you would have to substitute cream of tartar with potato starch……..not sure if Ghiradelli is okay for Passover………..
YUM!!
These look great. I have one note to add – baking them is always great and quick, but if you preheat the oven to 350 and then turn it off when you put them in and leave them overnight in the oven they are fabulous. I think you can really tell a difference. However, I have never done that with melted chocolate so perhaps it would be different.
Hi Lauren, Yes, I use that exact method for my basic meringue cookies with chocolate chips, a.k.a. Forgotten Kisses. It wouldn’t work well for this recipe because the texture is fudgy instead of crisp throughout…in other words, you don’t want to dry them out. But you’re right, the slow bake method is definitely best for traditional meringues.
Hi Jenn!
Can’t wait to make these for my family’s Easter get-together this year! I always try to come up with something special and new (last year it was macarons), and these will be absolutely PERFECT!
Jenn! These look absolutely perfect. I am meringue-obsessed, and with chocolate…hooray!
Sounds great. Will have to make them