Vegan Meringue - Chickpeas - 1

Since my last post I have moved house and have had no access to whisks etc..  so there's been a bit of a pause since my last posts on Linseed Meringues Part I in 2013 and Part II in 2014.

Since then there has been a small explosion of people using various other protein rich pulses and seeds to make meringues and other egg/egg-white-based foods...

e.g. http://aquafaba.com/

Faba is beans... I commented somewhere that Aquafaba is one kind of bean... Maybe chickpea liquid should be called "Aquachiche" or "Aquacicer"... and Linseed liquid "Aqualini"

So last month we had a chickpea curry... and rather than drain the liquid from the chickpea can and pout it down the sink, I decided to keep it and whisk it up with a handblender just to see what happened..   after 10 minutes or so, it took on a soft meringue puff texture... I experimented... I added some cocoa powder.. a half teaspoon of orange extract and some sugar.  Then I added a small amount (roughly half teaspoon) of xanthum gum powder...

Baked in the oven for 2 hours at about 105 degrees C.

Tasted very nice - with a hint of chocolate orange. :-)

I realised I need to work on their structure a bit.. and stop them sinking...  I do not think that the Aquafaba liquid was stiff enough before baking.