Chocolate cloud recipe brings embarrassment, joy

Yummy cookies courtesy of Hersheys.com

Aside from gaming, my other favorite hobby is cooking. Cooking, for me as a (still) single man (come May 14 that changes!), is a necessity. If I couldn't cook, I would have spent years eating those Hungry Man meals.

Cooking is therapeutic. It's relaxing to get into the kitchen, knowing you are about to do something productive that will give you something yummy to eat. It's a joy to discover new recipes and tweaks to tired recipes. And when you make something so fantastic that the people you cook for rave about how great your food is, well, that makes an attention-whore like myself just giddy with happiness.

And when you mess up a recipe, it really makes others giddy with an even greater amount of happiness.

In spring 2006, I was thumbing through my Mom's Hershey cook book and came across a recipe for Chocolate Clouds. "This looks intriguing," I said to myself while looking at the ingredients. Egg whites? To make a cookie? Tell me more!

I set out to make egg whites on that fateful day in May. I threw the eggs into a pot of boiling water for ten minutes, peeled off the shell, and set out to separate the egg white from the yolk. Knowing that the yolk would make the recipe taste nasty, I took great care (about 30 minutes) to make sure not one speck of yellow ended up in the mixing bowl. I added my cream of tartar and started the mixer, and was dumbfounded.

"Why isn't this blending?" I asked myself. Frustrated, I called my grandmother and explained my plight. My granny responded with a fit of laughter.

"Son you don't boil the eggs," she managed to tell me throughout her laughter. "You separate them before cooking them with a separator. You should have one in your drawer."

This experience is behind my desire to research EVERYTHING. That's probably the dumbest I've ever felt in a kitchen. In 23 years, I had never heard of egg whites, and after that day, my grandmother makes sure that I never forget them either.

Anyways, provided you know how to separate egg whites (the only challenging thing in this recipe: if you get any yolk into the egg whites, the recipe will be crap), you should really enjoy this recipe from Hershey. 

Since that debacle four years ago, I've gotten pretty good at making these. They are my cousin Austin's favorite cookies, and most people in my training class, including a girl named Hillary, absolutely loved them when I brought in a batch on Monday. These cookies were also LOVED by The Busted Halo show (which airs at 7 p.m. ET on Sirius 159, XM 117 each day) when I cooked them for the crew back in January.

Get to baking. You're gonna love the end result.

Chocolate Clouds

from the Hershey Kitchen

What you'll need
3 egg whites, at room temperature
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons HERSHEY'S Cocoa
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) HERSHEY'S SPECIAL DARK Chocolate Chips or HERSHEY'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips


What you'll do
1. Heat oven to 300°F. Cover cookie sheet with parchment paper or foil.
2. Beat egg whites and cream of tartar in large bowl at high speed of mixer until soft peaks form.
3. Gradually add sugar and vanilla, beating well after each addition until stiff peaks hold, sugar is dissolved and mixture is glossy.
4. Sift cocoa onto egg white mixture; gently fold just until combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Drop mixture by heaping tablespoons onto prepared cookie sheet.
5. Bake 35 to 45 minutes or just until dry. Cool slightly; peel paper from cookies. Cool completely on wire rack. Store, covered, at room temperature. 30 cookies.
6. Eat. Share. Enjoy!