Vegan Meringue - Chickpeas - 2

It's been nearly 11 months since I made these ... for Christmas last year.  The photos look better than than the final meringue...

I used chickpea liquid and experimented with stevia rather than sugar.  Unfortunately I discovered that stevia is fairly heat-stable.  And so, after hours baking in the oven, these did not harden at all... they came out as soft as they went in - which is a shame because there were lots and there was nothing that could be done to rectify the problem.

As can be seen... these were in the oven overnight... they certainly held their shape:

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.