Aqua faba meringue (Vegan Eton Mess)

Have you heard this crazy idea that you can use BEAN WATER (aka "aqua faba" and specifically the liquid from a can of chickpeas) as a substitute for egg whites? Well I am here to tell you that it is perfectly true. Recently I made Vegan Eton Mess for a potluck, and I baked up a batch of crispy-sweet aqua faba meringues, and... it worked.

The secret is to use the ancient ingredient from the 1900s called "Cream of Tartar." This white powder (potassium bitartrate) creates the egg-white-like effect by stabilizing the chickpea liquid so it can hold volume. A handmixer (or stand mixer) is pretty much required. Here is my meringue mixture after some beating. Then I added loads of sugar. Check out Loving It Vegan for a similar recipe.

 Look—stiff peaks!!

I then piped the mixture onto parchment paper and baked at low temperature for AGES. The trick with meringues, I learned, is not so much to cook them as to slowly and gradually drrrrryyyy them out until they are crunchy. I think mine may have taken about 2 hours total (first at low heat, then sitting in the oven as it slowly cooled).

The results were very meringue-cookie like! A vegan person, a gluten-free person, and a French person EACH said these were very good. That seems like very well-rounded praise.

I used most of the meringues to make Vegan Eton Mess, which was my contribution to an "Ugly Food" potluck. To make the mess, layer together chopped fresh strawberries, vegan whipped topping, and crumbled aqua faba meringues. The black specks in this photo are a fermented herbal power that I added for stress and mood benefits.

For a non-ugly version the mess could be assembled in a glass trifle dish.







As an aside, I had to share the Ugly Food pièce de resistance, which was not made by me. This is a kitty litter cake, which is crumbled vanilla cake and chocolate cake decorated with twists of caramel and buried Kit Kats and other chocolatey treats. It was disturbingly served with a fresh-bought kitty litter scoop and just felt... so wrong. Yet of course I had seconds.

Have you tried Aqua Faba yet? I supposed it could be made into a pavlova, right?