Sugar-Free Chocolate Meringues

Submitted by Dana on Mon, 2011-03-28 21:15

These do have that cooling effect in the mouth that comes from erythritol, but we love 'em nonetheless. This is my first try at chocolate meringues, hence the "#1" designation.

Chocolate Meringues #1

3 egg whites -- at room temperature
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup erythritol
2 tablespoons cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 300. Line cookie sheet with baking parchment.

CAREFULLY separate your egg whites from the yolks. Separate each one into a custard cup, and only when you've done so successfully, dump it into your mixing bowl and do the next. The teeniest pinpoint speck of yolk will keep your whites from whipping. While you're at it, be very sure the bowl you're whipping them in is grease-free before you put the whites in it.

Okay, you've got your three egg whites in the mixing bowl. Add the cream of tartar and vanilla extract, and start beating them at high speed with an electric mixer. (Don't try to do this in your blender or food processor.) Whip till they form a soft peak when you lift the beaters out.

Keep whipping while slowly sprinking the erythritol in, a tablespoon at a time. Keep beating till they make a stiff peak when you lift the beaters out. Now sprinkle the cocao over the mixture and beat it in, then stop beating.

Spoon the meringue by the teaspoonful onto the baking parchment. They don't spread much, so space isn't a big deal. If you have a pastry bag, it's nice to use it with a star tip to make little meringue rosettes, but it's hardly essential.

Bake your meringues 30 minutes, then cool. Keep in a snap-top container.

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Assuming you get 50 meringues, each will have: 2 Calories; trace Fat; trace Protein; trace Carbohydrate; trace Dietary Fiber

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I had to throw out snickerdoodles

Submitted by Kwithyco on Wed, 2011-05-11 22:59.

I'm interested in reading other folks' experiences with erythritol. I ordered some from Amazon, made snickerdoodles, and we found them inedible. The cooling effect was so strong we couldn't eat the cookies. It was like eating Certs cookies

Anyone else experience this? And how do I adjust recipe to reduce this effect?

Right now the bags are sitting in my cupboard; I'm afraid to waste anymore ingredients.

Nutritional info

Submitted by Mark on Thu, 2011-04-14 20:56.

Just baked up this recipe and it's really great...perhaps too great? I've never cooked with Erythritol, found a bag at a local health food store ("Wholesome Sweeteners - Organic Zero)and should have been wearing my glasses. It's showing 1 gram of carbohydrates for each gram of weight. I weighed the half cup of Erythritol and this recipe takes 100g of the stuff. If you do get 50 cookies, you're looking at 2g of carbs per cookie. Darn it. Someone please tell me I'm wrong!

Erythritol Carbs

Submitted by Dana on Fri, 2011-04-15 10:24.

You're not wrong, but your info is incomplete. :-D

Erythritol, like all polyols (sugar alcohols) is a carbohydrate. The reason we use polyols is that they are slowly and incompletely absorbed. For example, maltitol, widely used in commercial sugar-free goods, is roughly 50% absorbed. It also has a strong gastric effect, causing gas and even diarrhea if one over-indulges. The industry uses it because it mimics sugar most closely -- you can get virtually every texture you can get with sugar by using maltitol instead.

I favor erythritol because, while it does not mimic sugar as closely as maltitol, it is virtually completely unabsorbed in the gut. Therefore, I do not count it. Too, it has the least gastric effect of any of the polyols.

There are trade-offs -- erythritol is more likely to crystallize than maltitol; I haven't been able to make a good chocolate sauce with it. It doesn't caramelize, either, so you couldn't use it to, say, top a creme brulee. And, as you may have noticed, it causes a cooling sensation in the mouth, which works better in some recipes than in others.

But the important point for us is that because it is not absorbed, it is effectively very low carb.

Hope this helps.

Very cool...

Submitted by Mark on Fri, 2011-04-15 23:00.

No pun intended. Thanks for the info and the recipe!

Biscotti recipe

Submitted by ZoraP on Mon, 2011-04-04 07:12.

I hope it's not bad form to link to someone else's blog in the comments to this one, but I wanted to share this blog and her biscotti recipe for the previous poster:

http://dreamaboutfood.blogspot.com/2011/01/chocolate-hazelnut-biscotti-low-carb.html

Anyone using Dana's recipes will love perusing the ones found at this site -- the blogger has really made low-carb baking an art form. I haven't made these biscotti (yet!) but I've tried quite a few of her other recipes and they've all been wonderful.

Powder or crystals?

Submitted by mhmmccoy on Wed, 2011-03-30 14:34.

Do you use erythritol powder or granules in this? I've heard the powder is best overall as the crystals tend to stay grainy.(I'm new to all this stuff, so still am learning!)

Yes, I get confused about

Submitted by folkhearts on Fri, 2011-04-01 11:15.

Yes, I get confused about this too. I have granulated erythritol, but the powdered is not easy to come by. Was it the granulated?

PolyD fiber or Inulin?

Submitted by Jom on Wed, 2011-03-30 01:23.

Any thoughts about trying PolyD fiber or Inulin to counteract the Erythritol cooling?

Mmmm, sounds good - will

Submitted by vh on Tue, 2011-03-29 10:07.

Mmmm, sounds good - will definitely have a go at those. Not that I'm uber-demanding or anything (!), but any chance of you having a go at biscotti sometime?! They are probably the only thing I really really really miss from my sugar days & I do still gaze longingly at them in coffee shops... Thank you!