Vegan meringues with chickpea brine (Aquafaba)

After making Aquafaba Vegan Pavlova I tried to make meringues. I changed the recipe only a little, and used less sugar (still experimenting though!)

Ingredients

1 Can of chickpeas (just the brine - i.e. water, which already has salt)
200 g icing sugar
1 tbsp cornflour
A few drops of lemon juice 
a few drops of vanilla essence

Fresh As plum powder (optional)

Beat the brine first, then when it is nice and peaky add the sugar, one tbsp at the time, and the cornflour. Add the lemon juice and vanilla at the end and beat some more. I added some Fresh As plum powder to half of the mixture and then piped the two types of meringues onto a tray lined with baking paper and baked them at about 75°C fan for about three hours.

I offered them to some adult students at the Italian school to taste them, about half of them tried them but I didn't tell them that they were vegan, they liked them and when I told them what they were they could not believe it! Hearing that the other half of the class wanted to try them too, out of curiosity, and they liked them! Only a couple then said that they were a different from 'normal' meringues (one said less sweet and the other less crunchy). And then they asked for the recipe! 

"Vegan baker Goose Wohlt coined the term aquafaba ("bean liquid") to describe the liquid, which French chef Joël Roessel discovered could be used in recipes much like egg whites."

Source; Wikipedia

 Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

The Famous Aquafaba meringue makes a good Vegan 'Pavlova'

First a confession: I am not a fan of Pavlovas, not at all. But I love meringues, and ever since I have heard of the aquafaba meringue, or meringue made with the water from a can of chickpeas (very popular in Italian blogs, and not necessarily Vegan blogs, everyone is making it!) I couldn't stop thinking about it! 

"Vegan baker Goose Wohlt coined the term aquafaba ("bean liquid") to describe the liquid, which French chef Joël Roessel discovered could be used in recipes much like egg whites."

Source; Wikipedia

 Well, what a success!! Basically all you need to do is to drain a can of chickpeas, keep the liquid and then beat it. Don't do it by hand though, unless you have strong harms, it takes longer that egg whites. But wow doesn't it peak! And white and fluffy too! I got quite emotional seeing it, like a wonderful chemistry experiment.

After beating for 3-5minutes

After 7-8 minutes

After adding sugar and cornflour

Taaa-daaa!

But what to make first?  I was tempted to make an Italian meringue, but didn't want to add hot syrup to my new discovery, in case the magic stopped! No, I decided, I'll do that next time and stick to a easy icing sugar meringue.

There are plenty of recipes online to chose from, and then I saw one for a Vegan Pavlova, Pavlova of course being a loose term overseas, but there you go Kiwis, karma for having far too loosely reinterpreted too many Italian (and other nations) traditional recipes! This particular recipe was my top choice and had nice photos, but looked like a tree-layer meringue to me. Also I changed a couple of ingredients and quantities, and recorded:

Ingredients

Base
1 Can of chickpeas (just the brine - i.e. water, which already has salt)
250 g icing sugar
1 tbsp cornflour
1 tbsp white vinegar
a few drops of vanilla essence

Topping
1 can coconut cream
1 tsp golden syrup
a few drops of vanilla essence
Green and gold kiwi fruit and strawberries (out of season, but I saw two punnets for $7 and wanted them for the photo!)


Beat the brine first, then when it is nice and peaky add the sugar, one tbsp at the time, and the cornflour. Add the vinegar and vanilla at the end and beat some more.

Not confident enough to try a single Pavlova I made two disks, plus some little ones to see how they baked. I had the oven on first very hot, and the at about 75°C fan for about three hours, actually more, it seemed to take forever! In the meantime I also whipped some coconut cream (Vegan Pavlova, remember?), I find that the Family Choice coconut cream has the thickest cream of all, in fact so thick that you don't need to refrigerate the can first, and can use the liquid a the bottom of the can to thin it down. I added a tsp of golden syrup (Maple syrup is good too) and a few drops of vanilla, and then set the cream aside in the fridge.

Coconut cream

 I didn't end up assembling the 'Pavlova' until the day after, but the meringue was still good and the cream nice and stiff. I only put fruit in between the two layers, and reserved the cream only for the top. Possibly the disks were too large and they cracked a little, the smaller meringues looked great and made me plan for macaroons.  

The taste

Ok, I don't like Pavlova… but I loved this one!!!! Wowowowow! My daughter loves Pavlova, yet she found this version to be better, and my husband liked it and thought that it was less sweet that regular Pavlova (I can hardly believe it, with 250g of icing sugar??? Really? I was already planning to experiment with less sugar….). Also the texture, no, not a crunchy meringue all way through, but a soft marshmelloy centre, and even if it was in two disks it still tasted more like a Pavlova than a meringue cake.

But there will be more experiments, for sure!

 Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Kawakawa meringues and biscuits

Kawakawa meringues

If you like to forage in the New Zealand bush you may be familiar with kawakawa, and know that it was used in traditional Māori medicine. Also, the leaves make a great tea! But you can also use the leaves instead of vanilla to flavour desserts: they have a distinctive taste which is good for biscuits, meringues and custard puddings (like Crème brûlée). It has a peppery flavour and it works!

For the meringues and biscuits I started with the Italian meringue, which is made by adding hot sugar syrup to the beaten egg white. Actually, the Italian meringue doesn't need to be cooked as the hot sugar syrup already 'cooks' the eggs, and it is often used as the base for many desserts. But yes, it can also be used for making hard meringues. The so called French meringue is mostly used in New Zealand (egg whites and sugar, rather than hot sugar syrup), and it is easier to make, but to get the kawakawa into the meringues you need a hot syrup! Once you master it you can make meringues with all sort of herbs!

Kawakawa meringues

Ingredients: 

250 g egg white

500 g sugar

about 150 ml water 

a few kawakawa leaves, washed and broken with fingers (discard the stalks)

Beat the egg whites with 100g of sugar. In the meantime melt 400 g of sugar in 150 ml of water over a flame, and the kawakawa leaves and bring it to boil. If you have a sugar thermometer it should reach

121° C, but I don't have one and I just guess when the syrup is ready: it starts to bubble and 'smells' right.

Pour the syrup into the egg whites and keep beating until they are cold again.

Pipe the meringues on a oven try lined with baking paper and bake at 50° C for 4 hours. Leave for another day to dry completely and then enjoy!

For the biscuits:

Same recipe as above, but keep some meringue aside and then fold in a bit of self rising flour, adding a spoon at the time until you have a soft batter that is still full of air and can be piped through a pastry bag.

Pipe out some longish biscuits and then bake at 160° C for about 30 minutes, or until they smell done! Let them dry for another day before storing away. They last for ages! 

Kawakawa biscotti

Variations

Kawakawa and rose meringue: I picked some rose petals (below) and sprayed them with grappa, then I placed them in a jar with a little caster sugar for 2-3 days, not to dry them, but just to preserve the smell. Finally I folded the sugary petals into the Italian meringue before piping it on the baking tray. I used roses, but violets, gorse and other flowers would be suitable too.

I made all of these for our Slow Food foraging feast last Sunday, they were a success!

Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Feijoa zest meringues for Sweet New Zealand

In this post I mentioned using feijoa zest, I have use them before for this cordial, but I wanted to experiment more. Feijoa zest is bitter, that kind of bitter that makes you think that in large doses could be poison (possibly, anyone knows?) just like apricot kernels or fern fronds, but in small amounts, and occasionally, they feel safe (and I am still alive!). And they were good, possibly not as good as my favourite passion fruit meringues, but still good! 

First I put into a pot the zest of about 20 feijoas (you don't need all these, but there is another recipes coming out of this!) with 500 ml of water and 100 g of sugar, and I made a thin syrup. Then I drained about a tsp of zest and set it aside for the meringues. With the rest I made agar agar jelly (the next post). For the meringues I used 3 eggs white at room temperature and 150 g of sugar (normal white sugar). Once the egg whites and sugar were well beaten and stiff I added the zest and also one tbsp of cornflour to 'dry' the mixture (moisture from adding fruit or something moist to the meringue mixture can ruin meringues). I spooned the meringues on an oven tray and baked them at 50°C for about 4 hours. They were crunchy outside but moist inside. I tasted them first, for poison of course, and then I offered them at my Slow Food committee meeting. Nice to have foodies to experiment on!

This recipe is for Sweet New Zealand, the monthly blogging event for Kiwi bloggers. Our June host is Sue, click here to enter.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©