My first question arose around beating the egg whites until they start to turn opaque. I wondered what that looked like exactly, and made my best guess. After adding the sugar the whites whipped up to nice stiff, shiny peaks. Next I folded in a sifted mixture of confectioner's sugar and cocoa, and then the almonds. I did all this folding as gently as possible.
I piped the batter onto the parchment paper, using the 2 inch pencil drawn circles as a guide. In the end I had enough batter for 14 meringues, with 2 of them quite small, not the expected yield of 16. I wonder were the egg whites not at room temperature when I started or was I too vigorous when I folded in the sugar, cocoa and nuts?
Feeling ready to get out of the kitchen I didn't make the filling as directed but simply melted some chocolate chips, which worked well to keep the meringues sandwiched together.
