I am happy to announce that making vegan meringue is possible! After three failed attempts, I was slowly losing hope already, but this recipe here has been working for me already several times, so I am ready to share this with you. The secret, of course, lays in sugar. I always try to reduce white sugar in my baking, and this is why my first attempts failed.
But now, to think about it – regular meringues contain a ton of sugar too, so I am afraid that there is no good way to cut sugar from meringues anyway. So these are with white sugar too. But they are treats anyway and not meant to be eaten too often.
What I like about this recipe is that it is pretty much created out of nothing. The liquid from a jar of chickpeas is usually just thrown out anyway, and I don’t like throwing away food. Of course, most of the time, I still do not use the liquid (eating so many meringues would definitely not be good for me), so should you have more recipes for aquafaba, please share!
One thing to remember about these meringues is that they do not like humidity. Sitting on the kitchen table, they become damp very soon, so in case you plan to store them for longer than an hour, keep them in an airtight container. And if you plan to enjoy them as a part of a creamy dessert, add the meringues at the very last moment before serving, so they would remain crispy.
Vegan Peppermint Meringues
Cooking time: 2 ½ hours (15 minutes active time)
1 regular jar of chickpeas (organic if possible)
1 tsp of white wine vinegar
½ tsp peppermint extract
5 oz powdered sugar
Dark chocolate and matcha powder to decorate
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 210 F and cover a baking sheet with parchment.
Open the jar of chickpeas and drain the liquid to a larger clean bowl. You need about ½ cup of the liquid (you can call this liquid aguafaba if you want to be fancy). Set the chickpeas aside and use in another recipe. For example, prepare a nice hummus.
Beat the liquid at high speed for 3 minutes, then add half of the sugar, peppermint extract, and vinegar and beat for 3 more minutes.
Then add the second half of the sugar and beat for at least 5 more minutes, longer if you have extra time – the stronger the foam, the better the end result.
Using a piping bag (or just a teaspoon) create little clouds on the baking sheet.
Bake for about 2 hours until the meringues are completely dry. The exact baking time depends on your oven and the size of the meringues, so just check after 1 ½ hours and then keep checking every 15 minutes.
Once you are happy with the meringues, keep them in the oven with door ajar and let them cool down completely.
Decorate with melted dark chocolate and matcha powder, if you like.
By Kadri Raig
Kadri is a food blogger and yoga teacher from Estonia. She loves healthy food and cooking and for her, these two are often the same thing. Cooking meals from scratch, you know exactly what goes in it and even without holding back with sugar or fat we end up using a lot less compared to ready-made frozen stuff from the supermarket.
She does love to spend time in the kitchen, but most of her recipes are simple and don’t take more than 20 minutes of active cooking time. She thinks that everybody can find time to cook healthy food at home, it is just a question of planning. "I work in an office full time, teach yoga 7-8 hours a week and write a blog. So if I manage to cook most of my meals, then so do you!" Connect with Kadri and enjoy many more of her delicious healthy recipes on her website here: http://www.kahvliga.ee/
Practice FREE yoga and meditation from the comfort of your own home, before or after making this delicious dessert.
Meditation: Release Reactivity with Geenie Celento
25-Minute Full Body Yoga with Keith Allen