Peanut Butter Clouds
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A gem from Alice Medrich, these peanut butter meringues are salty-sweet and light as a cloud.
A gem from Alice Medrich’s Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies, these meringues are salty-sweet and light as a cloud. Lovers of both meringue cookies and peanut butter cookies will love them plain — a crunchy, two-bite treat to satisfy the sweet tooth. Everyone else will love them served sundae-style as Medrich suggests: piled into bowls with creamy vanilla ice cream and drizzled with luscious warm chocolate or caramel sauce. Yum!
“Oh my god, so so good! This combination of salty and sweet, that consistency of… clouds. So good.”
What You’ll Need To Make Peanut Butter Clouds
- Egg Whites: Provide the structure and light, airy texture of the cookies. Make sure your mixing bowl and your whisk are completely clean and free of any oily residue. If not, the eggs won’t beat up as they should.
- Cream Of Tartar: Stabilizes the egg whites, helping them to whip to stiff peaks, creating a fluffy meringue.
- Sugar: Sweetens the cookies and helps achieve a glossy, stiff meringue.
- Smooth Peanut Butter: Adds rich, creamy peanut butter flavor.
- Salted Peanuts: Add a crunchy texture, a nice contrast to the sweetness of the cookies, and enhance the peanut butter flavor.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
Step-By-Step Instructions
Begin by placing the egg whites and cream of tartar in the bowl of an electric mixer.
Whisk until the egg whites are creamy white instead of translucent and hold a soft shape when the beaters are lifted.
Continue to beat on medium-high speed, adding sugar a little at a time, taking 1-½ to 2 minutes in all, until the whites are very stiff.
When you lift the whisk out the bowl, the whites should hold a stiff peak.
Scatter small spoonfuls of peanut butter over the meringue.
With large rubber spatula, fold the peanut butter into meringue until streaky.
You don’t want it to be perfectly blended.
Drop rounded tablespoons of meringue 1-½ inches apart onto the lined cookie sheets. Sprinkle each meringue with a pinch of chopped peanuts.
Bake for 1-½ hours, until the meringues are perfectly crisp.
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Peanut Butter Clouds
A gem from Alice Medrich, these peanut butter meringues are salty-sweet and light as a cloud.
Ingredients
- 3 large egg whites, at room temperature (see note)
- ⅛ teaspoon cream of tartar
- ⅔ cup sugar
- ⅓ cup smooth peanut butter, well stirred
- 3 tablespoons finely chopped salted peanuts
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200°F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Position racks in upper and lower thirds of the oven.
- In the bowl of a heavy duty mixer fitted with the whisk attachment (or a bowl if using a hand mixer with beaters), combine the egg whites and cream of tartar. Beat at medium-high speed (or high speed if using a hand mixer) until the egg whites are creamy white and hold soft peaks when the beaters are lifted out of the bowl. Continue to beat on medium-high speed, adding sugar a little at a time, taking about 2 minutes in all, until the whites are glossy and stiff. When you lift the whisk out the bowl, the whites should hold stiff peaks.
- Scatter small spoonfuls of the peanut butter over the meringue. With a large rubber spatula, fold the peanut butter into meringue until streaky; you don't want it to be perfectly blended.
- Using two soup spoons, drop heaping tablespoons of meringue about 1-½ inches apart onto the lined cookie sheets. Sprinkle each meringue with a bit of chopped peanuts. Bake for 1-½ hours, rotating the pans from top to bottom and front to back halfway through baking. Turn off the heat and let the meringues cool completely in oven.
- Store the cookies in an airtight container as soon as they are cool. They will keep for a about 2 weeks.
- Note: You will get the most volume from room temperature egg whites. To quickly bring cold eggs to room temperature, place them in a bowl of hot tap water for 5-10 minutes.
Nutrition Information
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- Per serving (30 servings)
- Serving size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 41
- Fat: 2g
- Carbohydrates: 5g
- Sugar: 5g
- Protein: 1g
- Sodium: 12mg
- Cholesterol: 2mg
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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Comments
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Great recipe! The cookies came out great and they smell soooooo good 😋 they were just a tad soft in the inside but that was due to the peanut butter I think.
Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to add my picture of the cookies.
Kathy, so glad you like the cookies! Unfortunately, the blog isn’t set up to receive pictures but you can email them to me at jennifer@onceuponachef.com, or if you’re on Instagram, you can share it there; be sure to tag me @onceuponachef!
I made these twice, and both times they started out beautiful, and high and puffy, just like in your photo, but once “cooked” they came out dead flat!! Still delicious, but not right.
What am I doing wrong? I used fresh ground peanut butter. Please help!
Sorry you’ve had a problem with these. I strongly suspect it was the fresh ground peanut butter. If you want to give these another try, I’d use a creamy big brand peanut butter – I like Skippy. Hope that helps and that you have success if you make these with that tweak.
Can I use splenda instead of sugar?
Hi Jamie, I wish I could help but I’ve never worked with sugar substitutes so I can’t say how it would impact the recipe. I’d love to hear how it turns out if you try it with Splenda!