Incredibly easy and an amazing way to ensure NO WASTE. A true SOS kitchen miracle.
So last week I made vegan mayonnaise using the water from a tin of chickpeas.
But today I discovered that you can use the aquafaba (the water of the beans) from ANY tin of pulses.
This is how it happened.
I decanted a tin of black eyed beans to use in a pearl barley salad.
I kept the drained liquid in the fridge and later, when I had time, I decided to see if it would whip up as well as the chickpea water did.
Woohoo. Success!
Five minutes and it was thick and stiff - just like egg whites. But a word of caution - do not be attempted to whisk this by hand. When I say five minutes, I mean a full five minutes on full electric whisk.
Now, I know that one can add caster sugar and continue whipping to make vegan meringues.
(Another word of caution - weigh your aquafaba before you start - most cans contain 100-150 grams of liquid. For each 50 grams liquid you'll need 75 grams caster sugar.)
But I wanted a chocolate meringue, and something closer to an angel cake (which is a tye of sponge made with egg whites, sugar, and flour). So to the 100 grams of aquafaba I'd whisked (yes I did remember to weigh it - but to be honest if you forget just guess at its weight being 120 grams and you won't go far wrong) I added 100 grams caster sugar and 50 grams of cocoa powder.
Whisk. And whisk. And whisk. Took me 10 minutes to get it thick and glossy and it completely lost it's thick peak status - I could not have piped this into meringues - but since I was aiming for an angel cake type loaf, that was ok.
Poured it into a loaf tin greased and lined with silicone and dusted it with some chocolate sprinkles for extra chocolateness - you don't need to.
And baked it for an hour in a preheated oven 120c/250f/Gas mark 1 until a skewer came out clean.
I then let it cool in the tin before turning out and WOOHOO!
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