Author: Irene Arango

I must say that I have never been a fan of meringues. The fact that they are made with egg whites has always been off-putting, even when I was still consuming meat and dairy products like there was not tomorrow 😉 but I have now re discover them through the upcoming trend of aquafaba.

‘What is aquafaba’ you might wonder. Well, you would probably be surprised to know that is the liquid you (most likely) throw down the drain every single time you open a can of beans such as chickpeas, butter beans, pinto beans… It’s the by product of boiling chickpeas, the water left over from the boiling process that contains all the starches, proteins, and other soluble plant solids released by the grains or beans. It has pretty amazing properties as an emulsifying, foaming, binding, gelatinizing and thickening agent in cooking recipes. It’s kind of like egg whites and it is a natural replacement for these.

Since I discovered aquafaba (which actually means, literally, bean water) I have been experimenting replacing eggs in recipes instead of using chia or flax. it kind of works, but I find that the recipes usually need something else to bind properly. For example, cookies are a bit too crumbly for my liking if I don’t add some flax meal as well.

So, back to the meringues- these are sooooo easy to make. They only negative is that you have to wait until they are baked (or dehydrated!) and it can take a fair bit. To make sure the meringues don;t deflate, you’ll need to use the oven at a maximum temperature of 100 celsius. It is very important that you have an extra thermometer in your oven like the one here to make sure the temperature does not get higher than that. The dehydrator is a great and safe alternative to the oven if you have one (and the patience to wait for them to be ready!).

Without further adue, here there is the recipe that Ariana and me have made work every single time we have made them:

Aquafaba Meringues

1/2 cup liquid aquafaba
1/2 unrefined cane caster sugar*
1/2 tsp white vinegar

In a deep bowl or container or a mixer bowl if you have a proper baker mixer, put the quafaba liquid and beat it until it becomes creamy and forms soft peaks (meaning it starts to make shapes while being beaten). Start adding the sugar, one tablespoon at the time and beat until the peaks are not dropping once you lift the mixture up. the proof of fire is to turn the bowl over. If your mixture is still inside the bowl and not all over your counter, you are ready to pipe those meringues 😉

I say pipe, but you can also choose to simply drop dollops of the mixture into an oven safe tray covered in greaseproof paper. I do own a piping bag and Ariana seems to love to make a mess while using it, so we gave it a go. I forgot to say that ours are slightly pink because it is Ariana’s favourite colour. I saw online that you could use food colouring in part of the mixture but we don’t use that, so we went for beetroot powder mixed with a bit of water. The next time we are planning to use turmeric for yellow, matcha blue for blue colour and spirulina for green to make rainbow meringues.

* caster cane sugar can be easily made at home by simply blending unrefined cane sugar into a more powdery texture.