Aquafaba, The New Vegan Egg Substitute

 

Vegan baking recipes have to do without eggs. Nevertheless, vegans are now baking macaroons, cheese cream and any other type of cake.

A wide variety of egg substitute ingredients can be found in the baking recipes, from mashed bananas to ground hemp seeds to expensive powders from the organic supermarket. The newest vegan egg substitute is called aquafaba. It is the cooking water of legumes.

Bean Water Instead Of Egg White 

You don't need to buy aquafaba separately. If you're using pre-cooked chickpeas or beans, you'll find the aquafaba in the jar. Opened, it becomes frothy like whipped cream. Vegan macaroons are suddenly possible, as well as soufflés, mousse au chocolat, vegan ice cream and all kinds of cakes. Aquafaba is also used as a thickening agent for vegan jellies or cake creams. The bean water is the most common ingredient in current vegan baking books.

Three tablespoons of aquafaba replace a medium egg, and two tablespoons replace an egg white. You just have to pay attention to the salt content: If you buy salted beans, then the aquafaba will also be salty. In addition, not every legume is equally suitable, because the composition of the proteins varies slightly from species to species. The aquafaba made from unsalted chickpeas seems to work best for baking. The taste in the finished baked product is said to be neutral, although the fresh aquafaba smells a bit like peas.

Aquafaba Homemade In The Slow Cooker

To make homemade aquafaba, you'll need chickpeas, a small pinch of salt, and a slow cooker. Pour a packet of dry chickpeas into the slow cooker insert and pour plenty of boiling water over them.

 The pot should be almost full. Let the peas simmer for nine hours. Check from time to time whether there is still liquid in the pot. At the end of the cooking time, the water should still be an inch or two above the chickpeas. Then you let the peas and aquafaba cool down and pour them through a fine-mesh sieve.

This homemade aquafaba will keep in the fridge for up to a week. You can freeze it as ice cubes and thaw as much as you need.