The New York Times ice cream recipe called for six egg yolks. Thus a pound of strawberries met its fate along with a pint of cream.They call for either a half tsp of lemon juice or a half tsp of balsamic, and who squeezes a whole lemon for a half a teaspoon? I had some Bistro Blend raspberry balsamic from the guy who used to sell that top-notch brand at Stitches West. Unfortunately, the pandemic eventually did the company in–but if you can find anything like it it went really really well in there.

But the leftover egg whites.

I went looking for this almond meringue recipe but then didn’t really want to double it. So before I forget what I did since I was totally winging it:

3 c almond flour

2 3/4 c powdered sugar

1/2 c melted dark chocolate, random bits added till the semi-liquid got up to there

1/2 c melted butter

1/8 tsp salt

I started by whipping those 6 egg whites with a tablespoon of sugar to the hold-a-peak stage. Then I mixed the butter and chocolate into the almond flour/powdered sugar bowl and folded the egg whites in.

I ended up laying it out in a large flat rectangle on top of parchment paper on a cookie sheet. 350F, 25 minutes.

It was very good. It would make great cookies, too. I didn’t realize till afterwards that I was riffing on my chocolate hazelnut torte (and it was a lot simpler to do.)

Then the timer hit 4 hours on the cooling strawberry ice cream mixture and into the machine it went. Because we needed a second big dessert on the same day, right?

Actually, third. The NYT says to strain the cream mixture, and what that left us with was essentially candied scrambled eggs. Which was as weird as it sounds. (Where’s a little kid jumping up and down to take it off your hands when you need one.)

The ice cream? Definitely esteemed-guest-worthy, too.