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Bittersweet Chocolate Meringue Nests with Whipped Cream, Salted Caramel Sauce and Cocoa Nibs--the dessert is restaurant worthy and yet incredibly easy!

Chocolate Meringue Nests with Salted Caramel Sauce and Cocoa Nibs

Note this recipe starts the night before, as the best results are achieved for meringues when you let them cool overnight in the closed oven. This is a great recipe for Salted Caramel Sauce if you need one.

Course Dessert
Author TheSpicedLife

Ingredients

  • 10 oz (284 g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped, prefer minimum 70% cacao
  • 1 1/3 cup (262 g) sugar
  • 1/2 t fine sea salt
  • 6 large egg whites
  • 1/4 t cream of tartar

For garnish:

  • whipped cream--for this recipe use only homemade, made with preferably un-homogenized heavy cream
  • salted caramel sauce
  • cacoa nibs

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 275 F. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Place parchment paper or silicone mats on 2 cookie sheets.
  2. Place the chocolate with 1/3 of the sugar and all of the salt in a food processor. Pulse until the chocolate looks like fine crumbs. Set aside.
  3. Place the egg whites in the clean mixer bowl. Using a whip attachment, beat until foamy, and then add the cream of tartar. Beat at medium high speed (or high speed with a hand mixer) until the egg whites are creamy white and hold a soft peak. Continue to beat, adding a little of the remaining sugar at a time, until you've used all (of the remaining) sugar. This should take 2-3 minutes, until the whites are very stiff.
  4. Sprinkle the chocolate-sugar mixture over the stiff egg whites. Gently fold the chocolate into the egg whites. Do your best not to deflate, but do get all of the chocolate evenly incorporated.
  5. Scoop the egg white mixture into a large plastic bag. Snip one of the corners off to use the bag as a pastry bag. No fancy tip needed (although you can if you want your results to be even prettier--just make sure you choose a tip that the chocolate crumbs will fit through).
  6. Pipe the chocolate meringue nests onto each cookie sheet, making sure they are an inch apart. Start in the center and make circles working your way out until each nest is as large as you want it.
  7. Bake for about 1 hour, and then turn the oven off. Leave them overnight--DO NOT open the oven.
  8. The next morning you will have perfectly crisp chocolate meringue nests.
  9. Top them with a generous portion of homemade, lightly sweetened whipped cream. Drizzle salted caramel sauce--preferably homemade, I still need to get my recipe up!--over the whipped cream. Do not go crazy--you do not want the overall dessert to be too sweet. Then sprinkle with cacoa nibs.
  10. Note: My original intent was to share a selection of toppings, kind of a make your own chocolate meringue nest bar. However, we all fell in love so strongly with this exact creation that I have chosen to share it with you. But consider trying other toppings, like chopped nuts instead of cocoa nibs, for example.