Du Pain | Making Cloud Bread (Part 1: Chicken Eggs)

My sister once talked about a certain recipe in which you put a corn starch into a meringue batter on a double boiler, Turns out, it was a pavlova recipe. After watching a video on that, Youtube recommended me a video about this Cloud Bread from emmymadeinjapan. Why did Youtube recommend me that? Because the recipe is similar to pavlova, but with lower temperature and longer baking time. Just how similar? Let's jump to the Cloud Bread making process, shall we?

A. The Ingredients

1. The Wets

• Egg Whites
• Food Colouring of your choice (optional)

2. The Dry

• Powdered Sugar
• Corn Starch

Let's talk about the ingredients. Emmy only uses those 3 ingredients, I suggest you watch her video for detailed measurements. However, after finishing the bread, I found some recipe on the internet where people put lemon juice into the egg whites, kinda similar to a meringue recipe. I wan to try this recipe but with lemon juice or cream of tartar, but that's for the later update. For now, I will be "reporting" the making process of this Korean Cloud Bread.

B. The Preparation Step

1. Crack an egg into a small bowl,
2. Scoop out the egg yolk using clean hands,
3. Set the yolk aside, add the egg white into a medium-sized bowl.
4. Repeat the steps above until you get 3 egg whites in a medium-sized bowl.

via GIPHY

For the preparation step, you can use any kitchen gadget to separate the yolk and the white. I prefer using my clean bare hands since they are less likely to break the yolk. Also, separating the egg on a separate bowl one at a time would revert us from accidentally putting any bad eggs into the batch. It also prevents us from breaking a SINGLE yolk in a pool of three egg whites. Once the yolk breaks, it's harder, if not impossible, to separate the yolk from the whites (Been there, done that. I ended up making omelets and not macarons)

C. The Cloud Bread

1. Whisk the egg whites until frothy, via GIPHY
2. Gradually add in the powdered sugar while continuously whisking, via GIPHY
3. Gradually add in the corn starch, keep on whisking until stiff peak, via GIPHY
   via GIPHY
4. Add in 1-3 drops of food coloring*, mix until just combined, via GIPHY
5. Scoop the batter and plop it on to a baking tray, lined with parchment paper, 
6. Smooth the outer layer to the desired shapes, via GIPHY
7. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 175° C for 25 minutes*

Steps 4 is optional. I didn't do an intricate, cloud-like pattern in my cloud bread so the yield will only be a fluffy baby blue cloud bread. If you want to get a visual of clouds floating in the sky, you can divide the batter into two bowls, add blue food coloring into the other, keep the other batter white without food coloring. After that, put the blue and the white batter alternatively on the parchment paper.

Emmy from emmymadeinjapan baked her cloud bread for 25 minutes at 350 F. However, I know my old oven would get higher than indicated so I lowered the temperature to 150 C and baked mine for 40 minutes. That... was a mistake, lol. Even after 40 minutes of baking, plus 10 minutes of cooling down, my cloud bread still gets sticky on the outer layer. The texture is chewy on the outside and the inside felt almost custardy. Worried that I might be eating raw eggs, I ended up baking it for 10 more minutes. 

D. The Yield

via GIPHY

I love the burnt part of this bread! The burnt part tastes like ladyfingers. The fluffy part of this "bread" adds fun texture in contrast to the crunchy outer layer. It's like eating a freshly-baked ladyfinger, half of which dipped in a hot tea, but the other half is still dry and crunchy. However, I notice that this is not really bread? Well, because there is neither yeast nor starter involved in the baking process. Part of me wants to call this thing a souffle. In souffle we add in the egg yolks, but not in this recipe. Since this recipe only uses egg whites, what about... Snow Souffles? It's only a piece of thought, for now, I'll go with how people on the internet call this thing: a Cloud Bread.

Note:

1. I will be attempting to make this cloud bread again but using duck eggs with cream of tartar. Updates on it will be posted soon :)
2. As for the baking temperature, I will follow Emmy for the next batch and bake it at 175 C for 25 minutes to see how it differs from baking it at 150 C for 50 minutes,
3. Don't throw up the egg yolks, they make a tasty omelet, you can also cure them in soy sauce or in salt. Good luck <3