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Aquafaba & Vegan Meringue
Have you heard about aquafaba yet? It’s been taking the internet by storm this past year. If you have yet to hear about this wonderful product, lemme break it down for ya!
What?
Aquafaba is essentially a made up word coming from the root words ‘aqua’ meaning water, and ‘faba’ meaning bean. Soooo… aquafaba is bean water! More precisely, it’s the liquid or brine in cans of beans (the most commonly used is chickpea). Gross I know, but stick with me!
Why?
Most normal people usually strain & rinse their canned beans before using, so why on earth should you be saving this weird, slimy liquid?? Well.. aquafaba is essentially the vegan equivalent of egg whites! When whipped, the liquid transforms into shiny, white, stiff peaks of gloriousness! Do you know what this means?!?! It means that you can now enjoy the delights of meringues and pavlovas without having to use saturated fat-, and cholesterol-laden eggs! Aquafaba has been found to also be very effective in all sorts of other baked goods since it acts as a lightener and binder (again, mimicking eggs!).
Who?
It appears that curious foodies have been experimenting with aquafaba for a few years now, but with not many promising results. Earlier this year (in February 2015), a guy named Goose Wohlt decided to play around with aquafaba after an idea from some French cooks to use chickpea brine to make vegan meringues. His results were amazing and he quickly shared it with his Facebook network. Since then, an online community has formed on Facebook – a group called Vegan Meringue – Hits & Misses! – and the membership has risen in insane numbers! Members use this group to throw new ideas around, as well as to report back on new techniques and their outcomes. There’s also a website with a huge FAQ section for any aquafaba related question you could ask!
How?
The best thing about making vegan meringue is how easy it is!! First, drain your can of chickpeas (or white navy beans or similar) into a clean & dry mixing bowl. You should have anywhere from 1/2 cup – 3/4 cup of aquafaba. Add 1/4 tsp of cream of tartar (which helps the meringues keep their shape). Then you turn on your stand mixer, or hand mixer and watch the magic happen! Depending on your bowl size, the liquid will start to foam up and then form soft peaks in anywhere from 5-10 minutes. Keep whipping until stiff peaks have formed. You should be able to turn the bowl upside down and have everything remain in place. At this point you add 3/4 cup to 1 1/2 cups of fine sugar (icing sugar doesn’t work well, and regular sugar is fine, but remains a bit gritty in the meringues) a tablespoon at a time until fully incorporated. Pipe or spoon the meringue onto a baking tray (you could also do a big one and make a pavlova!) and put into a preheated 100C/200F oven. The point is to basically dehydrate or dry out the meringues rather than bake them. Bake for about an hour or so until they sound hollow! Voila – vegan meringue!!
Other Tidbits
Discovering this gem was a game changer! You can confirm this with Mac, but after my first time successfully whipping the aquafaba into a big, white, fluffy cloud, maniacal laughs could be heard from the kitchen as I couldn’t believe my eyes! If you’re not too keen about meringue, you can skip the baking step and just eat the fluff instead! The fluff isn’t as fussy as the meringue so you can use liquid sugar (maple syrup, brown rice syrup, malt syrup etc), and you can also add various flavourings.
Other noteworthy things that can be made with aquafaba include: chocolate mousse (omgggggg!!!!!), ice cream, endless types of different confectionaries (cookies, bread, muffins, cake, etc). Aquafaba can easily be used as a substitute for eggs in recipes – 3T aquafaba = 1 egg – meaning that it can effortlessly be used in savoury goods as well!
Every third week I make a chickpea curry at the day care. Since buying dried chickpeas and cooking them from scratch at work isn’t the most effective option, we opt to buy cans. The kiddos eat a LOT, so I usually have to use 18-20 cans of chickpeas for the curry. This means that I get a LOT of aquafaba. Experimenting with this has become a new obsession of mine and it never ceases to amaze me!!
Next time you open a can of chickpeas, don’t throw the brine down the drain – try experimenting with it! I hope you’ll give it a shot, and let me know if you do! I’d love to hear your results!
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