My time to shine!<p>Hazelnut Choc Chip cookies, designed for Aquafaba.<p>NB. You can switch out more of the hazelnut/almond meal to adjust the taste, but don't go much below 1/2 cup of almond!<p><a href="https://imgur.com/a/G2M1QoE" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/G2M1QoE</a><p><pre><code> 1 & 1/4 cup almond meal
1 & 1/4 cup hazelnut meal
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
2/3 cup flour (gluten free blend works fine)
2/3 cup raw sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt (ideally fine)
Mix above together, set aside.
1/2 cup aquafaba
Separately, whisk aquafaba until fluffy
6 tbsp coconut oil (liquid)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Add to aquafaba, whisk until combined
Add dry ingredients from above
Mix until tacky dough forms
Place in fridge for 30 minutes
Preheat oven to 190C
Form a ball from about 1.5 tablespoons of dough.
Place ball onto baking paper lined tray.
Bake in oven for about 15 minutes.</code></pre>
I've used aquafaba in cooking a lot, mostly to avoid using so many eggs in baking. And while I've had great results for a few specific recipes, I've also found that it's not a universal egg replacement, and it's hard to tell which recipes it will and won't work in.<p>I bake a lot of gluten-free and grain-free breads and biscuits, and aquafaba is a great egg replacement in these. Sometimes it even produces a better texture. But in other recipes, like cookies, it doesn't work at all; the dough loses its shape completely and deflates into a puddle.<p>I've also read about using aquafaba to make meringue or mousse, but I haven't had good luck with that so far. The chickpea taste is strong, and does not go with sugar at all.<p>I haven't tried using any beans other than chickpeas. Maybe it would work better with different beans.
Aquafaba is amazing. But since we're talking about egg replacers, here's one even more remarkable:<p>Carbonated water.<p>No joke. Carbonated water can seamlessly replace egg in almost all things where the egg provides some rising / fluffy texture (not so much binding, like aquafaba does). It won't be stepping in your quiche any time soon, but cookies, brownies, cupcakes, anything with a fluffy inside.<p>1/4 cup of water equals one egg. Try it, you'll be amazed.<p><a href="https://iambaker.net/egg-substitutes/" rel="nofollow">https://iambaker.net/egg-substitutes/</a>
Here's one fun use: replacing egg whites in shaken cocktails. Particularly useful for vegan friends (or anyone who feels squeamish about raw egg as an ingredient).<p>As long as you have good shaking technique, the foam and mouthfeel get pretty close to egg-based methods.
While I fully support and love the fact that this is on the front page (aquafaba rocks :D), can we just take a minute and muse on how nice it is to see a sensible, clean, old-fashioned web site that gets information to you straightforward and unobtrusively?<p>I miss the old web.
This is the cool part of the site<p><a href="http://aquafaba.com/history.html" rel="nofollow">http://aquafaba.com/history.html</a><p>> Joël's Discovers the Foam, Dec 2014<p>> While actively looking for egg substitutes, Joël Roessel, a ténor from France, discovered through a systematic investigation into vegetable foams, that liquid from red kidney beans and hearts of palm can be coerced into a foam in the same way as flax mucilage. He posted his results on his blog at revolutionvegetale.com, providing a key contribution to unlocking the secret of aquafaba.
Not to knock the wonderful developments that have happened in plant-based foods in the last decade, but this really makes me appreciate the egg all the more. Some of the egg alternatives seem to require a degree in chemical engineering to get right.<p>Between the many magical uses of the yolk and white (both separately and together), you appreciate how versatile a collection of fats and proteins it really is. And how user friendly it is. It even comes in it's own packaging!
I was head-writing a comment about how disappointed I was that this was a quirky software name instead of chickpea water, which is almost magical in properties.<p>Imagine my delight! Teach me to assume...
Aquafaba based mayo is great as well: just blend together aquafaba, oil, garlic and salt. It comes out with a similar texture and taste to egg mayo. I've had variations that add black salt to give it an eggy smell if you actually miss that part!<p>Another plant based trick is to combine vinegar with soy milk - it sours the milk a little and makes it curdle, emulating the taste and texture of buttermilk. Here's a pancake recipe from someone I know that has this trick to give a fluffy texture, where no eggs are needed:<p><a href="https://angeliqueboudeau.org/fluffy-vegan-pancakes/" rel="nofollow">https://angeliqueboudeau.org/fluffy-vegan-pancakes/</a>
As a vegetarian, I'm here to say canned chickpeas aren't great, but putting chickpeas straight into a pressure cooker for 15 minutes... they're awesome.
I always assumed that the water packaged with can beans would have tons of lectin seeped from the beans and therefore should be discarded. Is it safe to use?
I used to live with a Mexican family and one of the first non-milk foods they fed the babies was the water drained from cooked beans. I'm not sure if it could be used to cook or make cocktails but it was somewhat thick.
We have been using aquafaba exclusively due to egg issues for myself and our kids. We have found that mileage varies. Try for organic salt free chickpeas... the taste is not as strong and works amazing for pavlova (Australian desert) and merengue. We have also made chocolate mouse with salt free and I would suggest it’s better than egg based mouse. Salted aquafaba we use in cakes. The most interesting thing about aquafaba is how it responds to heat, we think it’s a lot more forgiving than egg. Both have a protein that responds to friction, but heat works differently so you have to realise that cakes and biscuits have a different texture to “normal”, but we have found over time it’s our new normal and we love it. Lastly, my scientist wife just said that egg has many properties that are useful in cooking and aquafaba is certainly exceptional for a few of them, but not all.
The holy grail for me is aquafaba-based macarons that work reliably. I've managed to pull them off once, but aquafaba meringue is much less tolerant of higher cooking temperatures than egg white and is prone to exploding into a foamy mess.
My daughter now 10 was diagnosed with a severe egg allergy around the time she turned 1. We aren't vegans and I love all kinds of things with egg (including home made pasta).<p>We tried so many egg replacers and were just not that impressed. I was resigned to giving up a whole bunch of foods I love. Aquafaba finally let us have so many normal meals back. You don't realize how many foods have egg in them (especially in restaurants: Orange Julius I'm looking at you! Who puts egg in fruit smoothies?!).<p>We use it to make pancakes, waffles, cakes, and even brownies (we found most egg replacers to be an utter disaster with many brownie recipes).
I'm vegan and I tried making whipped cream from chickpea water. It was one of the foulest things I've ever tried. It tasted _very_ beany.<p>I haven't tried using it for other things, and I imagine it could work fine in baked goods or in things with other strong flavors on top of it.<p>But for whipped cream, the vegan winner is still old school Rich Whip ready to whip (<a href="http://richwhip.com/rich-whip.php" rel="nofollow">http://richwhip.com/rich-whip.php</a>), which dates back to 1945. Note that only the ready to whip carton is vegan. The pre-whipped ones contain milk products.
I had a <i>great</i> aquafaba chocolate mousse in a restaurant in Haarlem (Netherlands). I think it was vanVeg on Zijlstraat. Unfortunately it's not listed on their menu and I'm not exactly going to try to pop over to the Netherlands during this pandemic to confirm my recollection.<p>Also, there's probably some other place in the world with a great aquafaba chocolate mousse.
This stuff makes a pretty good mayonnaise/aioli when you blend it with some lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and garlic or spice of your choice. Thinner than mayo and definitely has a slight chickpea taste to it, but it's quite good with fries or on a sandwich.
It's widely recommended in vegan circles to discard bean soaking water. Here's an example:<p>> So after the beans have soaked for a while, the soaking water now contains these elements that you are trying to eliminate by soaking the beans in the first place. And this is why the bean water is discarded. So it is best to drain the water and rinse the beans thoroughly before cooking. -- <a href="https://www.vegancoach.com/why-discard-bean-soaking-water.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.vegancoach.com/why-discard-bean-soaking-water.ht...</a><p>Anyone know whether that's right or wrong? Does it depend on the bean? Maybe the soaking water is a problem but not the cooking water?
If you have a peanut allergy, please read: I learned about aquafaba from my younger brother who suffers from a severe peanut allergy. He ordered a cocktail at a bar that substituted egg whites for aquafaba so the drink would be vegan friendly. This was not disclosed on the cocktail menu and he had an allergic reaction. The staff felt horrible after connecting the dots, and his drink and meal were taken care of, but I wanted to share as a warning for anyone with a peanut allergy. be ware of aquafaba in cocktails
This is as good a place as any to ask the following naive question: what is the name for the cooking liquid of pasta? Just recently, I cooked some spaghetti in a very small pot and fished it out using a fork. I forgot the pot in the sink. After 8 hours, the liquid had formed a pancake-like mass at the bottom of the pot. Is it the same as aquafaba, just from a different plant (wheat?). Is there any use to it?
"The Science of Our Favorite Pulse, the Humble Chickpea | What's Eating Dan?"[0] is a good introduction to everything you can do with the chickpea, including aquafaba. His other videos are great too, he frequently takes this approach of going deep on a particular ingredient.<p>[0] <a href="https://youtu.be/qKGqT-3Uypk" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/qKGqT-3Uypk</a>
Maybe it's just because I'm tired (or dumb) but after reading the front page, the FAQ, and clicking through some other nav I'm still not quite sure what aquafaba is.<p>Are they literally just talking about the stuff you get when you drain a can of chick peas? Or is there more to it than that?
I'm always amazed how cuisines vary vastly. In Chinese cuisine (which I'm familiar with), The use of egg "by"products (as in, not just cook egg straightly) in cooking is significantly less compared to Western cuisines. Milk byproduct, even lesser.
IIRC Guy Fieri did a Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives episode with a guy who was using aquafaba in making vegan deli "meats" with textures pretty darn close to the real thing. There's some really awesome wizardry going on in vegan foods.
Anyone had good luck with beans <i>other than</i> chickpeas? My wife is allergic to some legumes, including (alas!) chickpeas.<p>My apologies if I missed something obvious on the site. I just see that kidney bean liquid isn't good enough.
That's <i>really</i> weird - I've just put on a pot of dried chick peas to boil, so I'm literally making aquafaba right now. Things that make you go "hmmm"...
Does anyone know if that liquid is jam packed full of Bisphenol A, since it's stewing in direct contact with the edges of the can? I'm always suspicious of that.
I tried to make meringue from aquafaba while it worked it tasted awful because of the salty beany taste. Since then I gave up hopes of saving aquafaba for something.
It's sort of interesting but I don't really understand the issue they seem to have with using protein isolate rather than the dregs of boiled peas. Maybe it's because isolate rings like a chemical name? It's especially funny when considering that folks appear to be fussy about finding a natural-enough vegan protein source to make <i>meringues</i>, the other half of which is white sugar anyway, aka refined sucrose if you wanted to give it a chemical name, and IMO a quite "unnatural" product to begin with
No https? (checks calendar: yep, 2021. Checks 5 certs of owned domains from Let's Encrypt: yep.)<p>I'm all for non-tech people having sites like this, but in 2021 it's hard to excuse not supporting TLS connections to your web server.
Sorry, not a drop of aquafaba is left for experimentation purposes when my Mom cooks her home-famous "menestra" (red beans stew). She serves it with white rice and you eat til you lick the bowl...and then lick pot.
Not a fan. I already distrust legumes, now I'm supposed to repurpose the water they cook in? No thank you. Sounds like it would be full of lectins.