If you are vegan or are trying to eliminate dairy and eggs for whatever reason, definitely put this recipe in your toolkit. I had my doubts about aquafaba, but it’s probably one of the most surprising ingredients I’ve come across in a long time. What is it? Chickpea brine. Yep, the slimy water you find in a jar of chickpeas. All it takes is a whip and a wrist – or a stand up blender with a whisk attachment – and it metamorphoses itself into what looks like soft meringue. Believe it or not, there is a growing aquafaba afficionado community and tons of research is being done on its composition and cooking potential. It can be used as a “thickener, binder, emulsifier, foaming agent, and more” according to the Aquafaba community website.
Once you whip up the liquid into a firm white foam, fold in melted chocolate, pour it into glasses and then both of you chill for an hour until it’s set. What a pleasure to taste a vegan chocolate dessert that doesn’t have avocado, coconut or almond – not that I don’t like those, but I’m a simple gal and this just tastes like good old chocolate mousse. The only time-consuming aspect about it is figuring out what you are going to do with all those chickpeas! But if you are vegan, you probably have a ton of ideas 🙂
Note 1: I stay away from aluminium because of heavy metals, so opted for chickpeas that came in a jar.
Note 2: I don’t generally digest beans – including chickpeas – so well, but somehow this mousse went down really well so I don’ think the brine contains too many of the compounds that make beans hard to digest. This is probably because the brine isn’t the water that the chickpeas were cooked in. Nevertheless I would select good quality, organic chickpeas for this recipe.
Ingredients
- 1 cup of chickpea brine (1 big jar or 2 smaller ones, it depends on the brands)
- 120 grams of dark chocolate (I use organic 70% dark chocolate)
- (optional) 1 tsp of coconut nectar
- 2 tbsp of dark chocolate shavings
Instructions
- Heat the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl until melted or in a bowl over a simmering pot of water
- Add coconut nectar, mix well and let cool
- Meanwhile take the chickpea brine and whip it using your whisk or stand up blender until stiff foam peeks – you can’t overmix aquafaba so don’t worry. Just keep mixing until you can literally turn the bowl upside down without having the foam slide.
- Fold in half the cooled chocolate into the stiff peaks and when combined gently fold in the rest
- Pour into glasses and put in fridge to chill for about an hour
- Add some chocolate shavings and serve
