I am crushing your skulls, lil meringues!

Victory is mine!! MUAHAHHAAAAAA!!!! Oh yes.. look at my lil globs o'puff! So crunchy yet so oooey gooey on the inside! Melty yet chewy! I have looked my opponent in the eye and I have risen victorious! Am proud. Am also a dork. So I got out my very old, but ALWAYS trusty Mrs. Fields Cookie Book. I've made so many great cookies out of this book.. it's fantabulous. I wish I would have went straight to her when craving these little light chocolately snackers yesterday, but Paula is truly a wonderful, good down home cookin' gal and other than her meringues, I've never made a bad recipe courtesy of my favorite butter guzzlin' southern gal =) There differences in the recipes are as follows: Paula uses melted chocolate chips, Debbi uses finely chopped unsweetened chocolate and cocoa powder to flavor the meringues. Paula uses just confectioners' sugar while Debbi uses both confectioners' and granulated sugar to sweeten the meringues. Debbi uses cream of tartar in the egg whites, while Paula doesn't add anything. And the kickers - which I feel are why Debbi's were pretty much fool proof - A: After piping or "globbing" (which I did*) them onto a foiled cookie sheet she lets them sit for 45 minutes or until they aren't sticky anymore. And B: She bakes hers at a much lower 200º for an hour, where Paula baked hers at 325º for 45 minutes. I think the combination of letting them dry and the cooler oven were the key to keeping these meringues from falling like they did. Also, I really liked the method of folding in the dry confectioners' sugar, cocoa powder and finely chopped chocolate as opposed to folding in the melted chocolate. Where I thought I had kept my fluff when I made Paula's with the melted chocolate, I realized today while folding in the dry ingredients that I did lose a hell of a lot of fluff yesterday.. which probably also contributed to the horror. Oh yeah.. jeezzusssss, I almost forgot to mention, the taste of Debbi's was fantastic, deep chocolately goodness in every bite! So there we have it.. Meringues - LOSERS, Lisa - CHAMPEEN!!! :D Mrs. Fields Chocolate Meringue Puffs 2 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate 3/4 c. confectioners' sugar, sifted 3 TBS. unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted 3 large egg whites 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar 1/2 c. white granulated sugar Line baking sheets with foil. Finely chop baking chocolate squares in a blender and set aside. In a small bowl, combine confectioners' sugar and cocoa powder with wire whisk. In a medium bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar with an electric mixer at medium speed until mixture thickens. Increase speed to high, while adding granulated sugar slowly. Beat until mixture forms stiff peaks and turns glossy. Gently fold in cocoa mixture and chopped baking chocolate with a rubber spatula. Fold ingedients into egg whites until mixture is uniformally brown with no streaks. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip with the meringue. Pipe meringue in decorative shapes onto foil-lined baking sheets. Preheat oven to 200º F. Allow meringues to dry at room temperature for about 45 minutes or until not sticky. (Don't try making these on humid or rainy days.) Bake for 1 hour. When cool, remove from foil with a metal spatula *I tried to pipe mine into decorative shapes, but the only star tip I have isn't big enough to pass through the small bits of chocolate.. so my bag blew up on me. *sigh* I then proceded to drop 'em by large teaspoonfuls, not caring how the hell they looked. :D To those who might have noticed that I've changed the subject several times, it's because it took until today (5/8/06) and a chat with the very sweet Ali on Yahoo Messenger that I realized yet again what the absolute correct quote was. Not that it would help anyone in recognizing it unless you are a dork like me and were obscessed with Kids in the Hall way back when :D