This week I tried to make Cloud Bread with my friend Ally.  In theory, the recipe sounds easy.  It’s only three steps—whipping eggs whites, adding sugar and then cornstarch and then whipping the mixture until it stiffens, then bake for 25 minutes at 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

I think our first mistake was trying to whip the mixture by hand, instead of with an electric mixer. The recipe I followed warned me that mixing it by hand would take longer and not work as well.  But, neither of us had an electric mixer and we told ourselves that we would be able to do it by hand.  Well, we were very wrong.

We mixed until out arms were swore and even then the mixture was still runny.  So, we added more cornstarch and hoped it would make the mixture thicker.  That worked, to an extent.  The mixture got a little thicker with the second teaspoon of cornstarch.  Then it was just thick enough to hurt our wrists while we mixed.  This made us hopeful so we continued to mix.  After about an hour of mixing and the consistency not changing even a little bit we decided that it was good enough to put in the oven.  At this point, our expectations were low but we still had hope.

After it came out of the oven we were not met with the pretty pastel loaf of bread we saw on TikTok.  Instead, we had a bright blue, half cooked, but also somehow crispy, pancake.  We tasted it anyway, thinking that it couldn’t possibly taste as bad as it looks.  Once again, we were wrong.  The recipe said it would taste light and airy—sort of like a marshmallow. Ours did not.  It tasted very eggy, crispy and sort of like a fortune cookie but sweeter.

Our attempt

Needless to say, making cloud bread is not as easy as TikTok makes it look.

Article by Marissa Mayfield