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 - White kidney beans/Cannellini - 1

[edit:  I have since found out that "white kidney beans" are cannellini beans (also Safaid Lobia in India)]

Meringues made from white kidney bean liquid whisked up has been the best structurally...

But knowing that kidney beans can be a bit of a problem - possibly lectins etc - I decided to quickly boil the liquid from the can of white kidney beans first.  I brought it to the boil and let it boil for about 2-3 minutes.  Then I let it cool and put it in the fridge overnight.

Perhaps this is what all the other attempts need...

I added sugar and vanilla... and a touch of xanthum gum...  and baked at 110 degrees C for an hour or two...

My partner tried one and said they tasted like maltesers!!  I've not had one for a couple of decades so I'll take her word for it.. :-)

Vegan Meringue - Black Beans - 1

Tonight we're having a Malaysian curry dish which is calling for Black Beans...

So I drained the liquid from the tin of black beans and whisked it up... now I am just attempting to make the meringue and bake it... so I added an amount of sugar.. and some vanilla.. and some cream of tartar (as per the aquafaba.com instructions for chickpeas).

Baked at about 100 degrees C for a couple of hours... here's what they looked like:



Didn't turn out too badly... except... they tasted nasty... damn.

Since I made these I have learned that it might be necessary to boil the liquid first, before you whisk it.  Some liquids contain lectins which aren't good for you.  So I had to throw them out.

Still it is encouraging that they held together...

Vegan Meringue - Cannellini bean Mayo - 1

This time we were having Pasta with Cannellini beans...

So I drained the liquid and began whisking... and I had read that one could make mayonnaise this way by drizzling oil down the side as you whisk...

It didn't quite go to plan... I added a dash of vinegar, and some mustard...but I used vegetable oil instead of olive oil.  So I got a French Remoulade, rather than a Mediterranean Mayonnaise...

And the picture didn't come out...

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.

Vegan Meringue - 2

Following on from my first attempt to make vegan meringues...  I decided to try again with a few modifications...

In my first attempt, the separation of the linseed goo was a messy affair... and one that can be resolved with a piece of cheesecloth and a few bulldog clips...

1.   I am using roughly 9 times as much water as linseed.  So 3 rounded tablespoons (50ml) of linseed and and 450 ml of water.  Roughly...

2.   Heat the linseed in the water until it boils and then simmer for ~20 minutes.

In the picture below I had used 75 ml of seeds and 600 ml of water.

3.  Using bulldog clips, clip the cheesecloth over a bowl, and pour the linseed and water into it and allow the goo to filter through... Use a spoon to stir the seeds carefully to get as much liquid from the mixture.  You could leave it for a while... then when you feel it's read, carefully unclip each bulldog clip one by one gathering up the edges to make it into a bundle... (or spoon most of the seeds out until it's easy to remove).

4.  Pop the bowl of linseed goo into the fridge for half an hour...

5.  Then I got out my hand blender and slowly started blending it.  By about 4 minutes you could begin to see the air getting trapped.. I turned the blender up to high. I think it should have been up on high from the start.  Because I passed the 8 minutes that is recommended for eggs... and then passed about 10 minutes.  I stopped when I reached an almost peak-forming foam.  I have no photos of what it looks like this time... see my last post because it looks pretty much the same.

6.  Add sugar.  Now if I were making meringues with eggs I'd be adding powdered sugar about 1 spoon per egg white?  ish... apparently.  So I had to guess.  I discovered, reading online about egg foam, that you can't add the sugar too soon, because otherwise the sugar molecules compete with the linseed protein molecules for the water.  The proteins must trap the air and water and then you slowly fold the sugar into the mix..

7.  Bake in an oven... Now this time I put them in at about 140 C... but they began to rise... so I turned it down to 120 C and then 100 C... and even that might have been too hot for them.  I left them there until I began to feel uncomfortable about them being in their too long... about an hour or so...

8.  And they came out dome-like.. with an airy centre.  But far too much air ... so they broke up...

When trying to lift them off the pan, they broke up into small fragile shards..   but several people will contest that they do in fact taste like meringues..

Next time... how to make a more solid linseed meringue...

Vegan Meringue - I

I'm one month off being a vegan for 20 years ... and for many of these years I have never thought about several dishes that are usually made with eggs, such as tiramisu, souffle, meringues, etc.  But then last Christmas I noticed on the back of a pack of Orgran egg replacer, a recipe for meringues.  I spent a week trying to source citrus pectin powder and had no luck, so my interest withered...

Then I bought Miyoko Schinner's Vegan Artisan Cheese and noticed in the recipe for Tiramisu, a method for making vegan meringues that she had developed.  The instructions were straightforward although the details were scant... the method makes a foam that is folded into vegan cream cheese and whipped coconut cream..  it was not designed to be mixed with sugar and baked... so I used the idea and began my own exploration...

I didn't have any linseeds/flaxseeds in the house.. but I did have a pack of ground flaxseed... So I boiled this up in some water for 20 minutes and it made a gooey mess... but it's impossible to remove the ground up fibres from the liquid.   I also tried with Chia seeds, and it's impossible to strain water off chia once the mucilaginous layer has formed around them.  So..

Rule 1 - Only use whole linseed / flaxseed - don't use ground flax or whole/ground chia.

(brown flax seed and golden flax seed - Images from Wikipedia)

I asked in the health food shop in York what the difference is between the brown and the yellow.. I don't know if I got a real answer.  They look like two varieties of flax seed.  The golden one perhaps looks nicer in food than the brown.  Brown is cheaper and is often used for making paints and non-food products.  I bought the brown variety.  I don't really need to spend more for golden.. especially for the first few trials.

I'm not interested in the Omega-3, ALA, lignan or protein content of flaxseed.. You can find that out in the link to Wikipedia above.

Step 1 - 1/3 of a unit of flax/linseed to 3 units of water.

This seems to be the general rule.  In this first few trials a tablespoon of flaxseed can be levelled or rounded..  measurements are fairly rough, as we are just looking at how it responds.    So I measured out 75 ml of flaxseed/linseed, which is about a third of a cup (roughly 210-220ml) and added that to about 600-700 ml of filtered water.  This is brought to boil and then simmered on medium for about 20 minutes.   I can't remember if I did this exactly or let it boil longer.. if you let it boil too long you will lose liquid.. if you don't boil for long enough, then not enough protein will leave the seeds.

Step 2 - Sieve and Cool

After my first trial with ground flaxseed, sieving this whole flaxseed was much easier... but I still made a messy job of it.  I had a few pieces of cheesecloth and I used it to line a metal sieve with a fine mesh... then I tried bunching the corners of the cheesecloth and holding it... scraping it with the edge of a spoon... it ended up being very messy.  Squeezing the bulb of flaxseeds in the cheesecloth just go the goo all over my fingers.. and eventually the cheesecloth slipped and I had to start again.  But eventually I had about a cup or less of clear, slightly brownish goo.  And the way it moves looks a little bit like egg white.

This is left to cool to room temperature and then put it in the fridge.  

The flaxseeds in the cheesecloth could be added to a cake, biscuits/cookies, or to bread...

Step 3 - Whisk forever

Ok.. well not forever.  I had an electric hand whisk.. I set it to low.. and started whisking away.  The gloop wrapped around the whisk blades and climbed up... I changed the bowl several times because it threatened to jump out and run down the sides of the cabinets..  The instructions said 7-8 minutes... so.. after about 15 minutes I was getting a little tired.. the whisk was about to thermally cut out.  I decided to add sugar (several spoons of it - i didn't measure it) at that point, which is not supposed to happen until the meringue has been whisked until it forms peaks..  but it didn't seem to matter.. I was still whisking away...  So it worked... I ended up with a nice viscous foam... it didn't form really good peaks.. but it was close for my first attempt...  My next error was - I put it aside and went out for the afternoon.  Apparently you aren't meant to leave it.  I came back later, whisked a little more then decided to move on to baking it...  Here's the linseed meringue foam with sugar added... my phone's camera decided at this point to have a brown spot in the middle of every shot.. so this one is in black and white.. the foam is white anyway.. 

Step 4 - Cook

This time round I just spooned a little of the mixture into some muffin tins and then baked at 150 C...  I watched them rise and rise and rise.. they puffed up like balloons over about 15 minutes... and then suddenly they all collapsed.  Darn.. So next time I think I need a cooler temperature to stop the rising.. and longer than 20-30 minutes so they dry out rather than cook.  Here's some pictures of the cooked and collapsed meringues...  But despite all that, my partner reckons they tasted pretty much exactly like meringues...

Since this time I tried again and I had slightly better luck - and some of the stages were much easier.. I'll write that up in another post some time.