Cloud bread is the latest food trend to take over TikTok, and you only need 3 ingredients to make it
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Anneta Konstantinides
Aug 7, 2020, 12:27 IST
Cloud bread is the latest food craze to hit TikTok.Abimhn/TikTok/Soflofooodie/TikTok
Cloud bread is the latest food craze to dominate our TikTok feeds.
And it requires just three ingredients to make: egg whites, sugar, and cornstarch.
It appears the cloud bread trend was first launched by TikTok user @linqanaaa, who posted a video demonstrating the recipe.
Now food bloggers are creating a variety of different flavors, from garlic butter and cheese to a multi-colored cotton candy.
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First we searched for sourdough starters. Then we turned our focaccia into garden landscapes. Now we've got bread that looks like it was sent straight from the heavens.
It appears the cloud bread trend was started by TikTok user @linqanaaa, who posted a video of the recipe on July 27
The clip shows @linqanaaa mixing egg whites with sugar and cornstarch into a meringue-like whip, before popping the mixture into the oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
Abigail Hwang-Nable, of @abimhn, told Insider that she made cloud bread after she saw @linqanaaa's video and was "intrigued by its fluffiness and simplicity."
But Hwang-Nable made a few tweaks to the recipe, adding blue food coloring to the mix.
"When I made the plain white bread, it just felt like I was making a cake and nothing to live up to its iconic name," she said. "So I was trying to think of a color that reminded me of clouds, and blue it was."
Abigail Hwang-Nable's blue cloud bread became a sensation on TikTok, racking up more than 21.6 million views at the time of writing
Shalean Laberge and Stephanie Ghitis, of @soflofooodie, also decided to try making cloud bread after @linqanaaa's video came up on their "For You" page on TikTok.
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Laberge told Insider that they wanted to put a new spin on the recipe, so they added blue gel coloring and Oreo pieces.
Although cloud bread has a very simple recipe, there's a few key tips you can follow to make sure it comes out nice and puffy
"The most difficult part about making cloud bread has to be knowing when to stop whipping," Matthew Merril, of @matthewinthekitchen, told Insider. "You can't overmix or else your meringue will separate, but if you undermix you won't get as fluffy of a texture."
Merril strongly recommends using an electric mixer to combine the three ingredients together, and watching to make sure the whip forms stiff peaks.
"When you lift the whisk out of the mixture, it should form a peak on the end that resembles a bird beak," he said.
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Laberge recommends putting your mixing bowl in the freezer for five minutes before whipping the egg whites to help get those stiff peaks.
"Working with egg whites can be very strategic, you have to work with the correct temperature of eggs," she said. "What works for me is using a cold bowl."
"Additionally, no amount of egg yolk should get into your egg whites," Laberge added. "It needs to be solely egg whites for the air to remain in the whites and whip up."
And when it comes to flavor, Hwang-Nable recommends adding some vanilla into the recipe to make sure your bread doesn't taste "too eggy."
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"Cloud bread is mostly eggs with not a lot of sugar," she said. "The vanilla made it taste like marshmallows and I really liked it!"
"Cloud bread is like a blank canvas," My Nguyen, of @myhealthydish, told Insider. "You can play with the colors, shapes, and size. Someone even did a tie-dye version."
There's also been ube, matcha, and strawberry cloud breads, while Laberge recently made a savory one topped with garlic butter and cheese.
A post shared by Shalean LaBerge|Steph Ghitis ✨ (@soflofooodie) on Aug 3, 2020 at 4:12pm PDT
Cloud bread can work with almost anything, which is why Merril believes it's already been such a hit.
"It looks impossible to make and yet it's so simple," he said. "It only uses a few ingredients, and you can add any liquid flavoring and coloring. From there, the sky's the limit."
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