Aquafaba, the miracle alternative to egg white. No, I couldn’t believe it either so I thought I’d try to make meringues with it. After all, meringue is the one dish where you MUST have egg whites! Right?

What is aquafaba? It’s the water from tinned peas/beans. I used chickpea water from a tin I got in Aldi and I couldn’t quite believe how good the result was.

Unless you’ve got the upper body strength of Henry Cavill and the stamina of Mo Farah, you are going to need an electric whisk.

Serves: 13 – makes 13 tablespoon sized meringues

Ingredients

• 125ml aquafaba
  • This is about what you get from one 400g tin of chickpeas
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 170g caster sugar
  • This is the same volume as the aquafaba
• A few sprays of sunflower oil
  • to stop them sticking to the baking paper

Method

• Pre-heat the oven to 120° C / gas mark 1
• Pour the aquafaba into the mixing bowl. Add the lemon juice and vanilla bean paste. Whisk until the mixture is white and starting to firm.

• Keep the whisk going and gradually add the sugar until it is all incorporated. The mixture should be white, glossy and starting to make firm peaks.

• Line a couple of baking trays with baking paper, spray the paper with a little sunflower oil, rubbing across to cover.
• Using a metal spoon, place one tablespoon of the mixture on the tray. Carry on until it is all used, leaving 3-4cm (1 – 1.5″) gaps to allow the meringues to spread during baking.

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• Place in the oven and bake for 1 hour. Test after this time by gently touching a meringue to see if it is tacky. If so, bake for 10-12 more minutes and try again. They should just be starting to turn golden
• Turn off the oven and leave the meringues in their to cool for at least 4 hours.

Notes

I tasted some of the mixture left in the bowl and it tasted a bit like marshmallows. Perhaps I’ll make some smaller ones and use some rose flavouring. Hmmm?