Recipe: Vegan Meringue

I know that I'm super late to the whole aquafaba thing, but it's everywhere, and being the curious sort, I had to give it a try personally. Especially when I haven't eaten a meringue in years, I just couldn't turn down an opportunity to have one!

Let's just say that I am super impressed with what you can make out of chickpea water. That's right, that brine-y, weird water I used to throw out can be made to behave just like whipped egg! Whoa! What kind of magical wizardry is this?

Vegan Meringue

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Ingredients:

• The liquid from a 400g can of chickpeas
• 3/4 cup sugar (plus an extra 1/4 cup in case)
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• pinch of salt
• vanilla

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 140C and line your trays with baking paper
2. Start beating your aquafaba until it is foamy
3. Add in the 3/4 cup of sugar, cream of tartar, salt and vanilla. Keep beating
4. It takes a while, so keep on beating. If your peaks are soft but not yet stiff, you may like to add in the extra sugar (it's the sugar plus the bean water protein which is gives the lovely crisp, shiny meringue)
5. When your mixture is shiny, stiff and doesn't fall out of the bowl when you tip it upside down, you're done.
6. Use a spoon to dollop, or pipe tidy shapes onto your tray. Bake for an hour until they are set. Cool completely

Notes:

• Meringues (vegan and regular) hate moisture, so store them in a cool, dry place. Not the fridge.
• The salt and vanilla are optional. I really like the little salt bits to break up the jaw aching sweetness

Now I want to see if I can take this to the next logical level and make vegan marshmallow! I've seen that there are people using aquafaba for all kinds of things - cookies, baking, and even making vegan quiches.

Have you ever experimented with bean liquid? What's been your best recipe so far? I'm so overwhelmingly impressed with what people are creating!