Recipe: Thundercloud Bread

IN order to make Thundercloud Bread, one must spend time staring into the very depths of hell. That's right: fluffy egg whites. Even now my Aunt Agony is in the kitchen weeping at the very thought of such a cheery exhibition.

Thundercloud Bread is, as you may well imagine, a controversial recipe here in Pixietown. Many advocate for the use of black food dye to make it look like good, proper food, but I prefer to save our precious food dye resources for the really important stuff, like my brother Doom's upcoming wedding to his girlfriend Gloom. How could we possibly have a wedding without a black cake? That would be a disaster. Cover your cloud bread in poppy seeds, close your eyes when you eat it and you would never know it was *shudder* all yellow inside.

Cloud Bread

INGREDIENTS

4 eggs

3 1/2T cream cheese, non-dairy cream cheese, unsweetened coconut cream or mashed avocado

1T sugar (optional)

1/4t cream of tartar

poppy and nigella seeds to top (mandatory)

METHOD

Heat oven to 350F/180C/Gas Mark 4.

Oil baking sheet and line with baking paper. Separate the eggs and beat whites and cream of tartar until stiff peaks form.

Beat your egg whites to stiff peaks. If the fluffy whiteness proves too traumatic, add black food dye.

Mix together egg yolks, cream cheese or cream cheese substitute and sugar (if using) until mixture is very smooth and uniform.

If using seeds or herbs to flavor, add them to the yolk mixture. Gently fold into the egg whites, preserving as much volume as possible.

Spoon onto baking sheet into either six equal rounds, or spread onto baking pan and smooth into as even a layer as possible. Sprinkle with a thick layer of poppy seeds to make a nice thick coating of black.

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A nice thick coating of poppy and nigella seeds will turn your Thundercloud Bread a proper, textured shade of black.

Bake for 20 minutes until golden and springy, rotating halfway through. Cool completely on a wire rack and place in airtight container with baking paper between each round (or if you baked a sheet, cut into rectangles when cool and do the same) and refrigerate overnight.

 

 

 

 

With thanks to Kate Reed