Aquafaba is a kind of bizarre accidental miracle egg white substitute. It’s bean water - specifically chickpea water. The stuff you tip down the drain right before you make hummus. I have seen people try other types of beans, but chickpea water works well and has a fairly neutral flavour. It’s really hard to believe that it will work the first time you try it; it seems impossible. But when you start to whip it, it’s so egg-white like that I don’t think I could tell the difference if I didn’t already know it was aquafaba. It seems to have been first discovered by a French tenor in 2014, and then took off in internet vegan and otherwise egg-averse circles.
Aquafaba is a little delicate compared to egg white meringues - it’s a bit more resistant to forming stiff peaks when you are mixing and slightly more prone to flattening out during baking. But it’s eggy-ness is incredible.
I adapted this from an Italian meringue recipe, which I like a lot because it gives a very dense, marshmallowy foam that is glossy and sleek. The result will aquafaba produced a very similar result, perhaps very slightly more flattening as the cookies baked. You can dial in the baking time to get them to turn out as crispy or marshmallowy as you like.
vegan peanut & chocolate meringues:
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup water
¾ cup aqua faba (*reduced)
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
½ teaspoon vanilla powder or the seeds scraped out of ½ a vanilla bean
1.5 ounces dark chocolate
2 tbs peanut butter
4 tbs salted, roasted peanuts, roughly chopped
Flaky salt (optional)
In a bain marie (or a heat-proof bowl set over a pot of water) on low heat, melt together chocolate and peanut butter. Set aside, keeping melted mixture over the warm water to keep it melted.
Melt sugar and water together in a small pot over high heat. Using a candy thermometer to monitor the temperature, cook syrup until it reaches 245-250 degrees. The sugar should just start to turn golden.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, whip aquafaba on medium speed until very foamy. Add the cream of tartar, increase the speed to medium-high, and beat until soft peaks form.
With the mixer running, pour the hot sugar syrup in a thin stream over the aquafaba foam. Beat until stiff peaks form and mixture is very glossy. Add vanilla powder. Continue to mix on medium-low until the side of the bowl is just slightly warm. Add ½ of the chopped peanuts and mix through.
Spoon large dollops of meringue onto pans. Spoon a teaspoonful of the chocolate and peanut butter mixture onto each meringue blob. Swirl through with a toothpick. Sprinkle the remaining chopped peanuts and a little flaky salt, if using, over each one.
Bake for 2 hours, turning pans 180 degrees halfway through baking. At this point, check the meringues for softness/crispness. They will slightly set up as they cool, but if they are very soft in the oven they will still be soft when cooled. For crisp meringues, reduce heat to about 150 degrees and continue cooking. I left mine overnight - the result was crisp meringues, with a texture similar to honeycomb candy.
Notes:
*Aquafaba works best when you slightly reduce the liquid’s volume before using. I cooked it in a pot over medium heat until the volume was reduced by a third.
Heating the sugar syrup: cooking the syrup to about 135-140 degrees will allow the sugar to reach hard ball stage but it will not caramelize at all, resulting in lighter coloured meringues. Cooking the sugar slightly more to about 150 degrees will give a slightly more toffee coloured and flavoured meringue.
Cooking time: After 2 hours these are slightly set and still soft and marshmallowy in the center. If you want them more crispy, turn the oven to a very low setting and leave for 2-8 more hours.