Aquafaba
aquafaba.com
aquafaba.com
Hazelnut Choc Chip cookies, designed for Aquafaba.
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!
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.Is this just for taste reasons?
- some recipes can be very finicky regarding ratios,
- e.g. different flour types can vary quite drastically in density
- you can e.g. easily reduce the volume of a flour batch by at least 15% by pouring differently (or simply bumping the container a few times)
going by volume alone still works for most recipes and is quite frankly as easy as it gets.
Going by weight alone also is not entirely scientific though (e.g. moisture of raw ingredients is usually not exact/controlled). And flour can behave differently, based on batch or type, even if you get the weight perfectly right.
So most bakers have their recipes "dialed in", i.e. they have a feel for the right texture, how the dough behaves, how to adjust resting times, etc.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cup_%28unit%29#Japanese_cup
Is that because most results are in regards to bras?
It's problematic if some ingredients are specified by volume, others by weight.
It’s always my first step before baking a recipe the first time.
We have two kitchen scales. I never get them confused. They're interchangeable.
I can only imagine eating these could result in a rough approximation of the decibel level of the Dragon taking off from Launch Pad 39A.
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.
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.
I haven't tried using any beans other than chickpeas. Maybe it would work better with different beans.
I loosely base my recipe on the one Babish came up with on his channel.
I'd definitely try chocolate chip if you haven't. Playing with other kinds of oils and odd ingredients would probably change it a bit too much for aquafaba to work correctly.
I once made vegan tiramisu for a friend using aquafaba made from boiled dry chickpeas, and the sweet/chickpea flavor tasted exactly like the worst kind of vomit-burp imaginable. It is one of probably 2 or 3 of several thousand meals I've ever cooked that I threw directly into the bin after having another person confirm the flavor.
- 3/4 cup potato starch
- 1/4 cup coconut flour
- 1/4 cup almond flour
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup water
- 3 tbsp aquafaba
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Add oil and water, stir. Add aquafaba, stir.
At this point, it should stick together but still be somewhat lumpy. If it does not stick together, add more water, but be careful--don't add enough water that it becomes smooth!
Add vinegar, stir, and spoon individual biscuits onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Should make 7-9 biscuits. Cook at 350 degrees F for 12-15 minutes.
These biscuits are excellent with olive oil and vinegar. They reheat well, and have a crumbly texture that reminds me of Southern-style biscuits.
The flatbread recipe is similar, but with no baking soda or vinegar, and the flours replaced with 1 cup tapioca starch and 1/3 cup coconut flour. Some extra olive oil helps too, and maybe some oregano.
Carbonated water.
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.
1/4 cup of water equals one egg. Try it, you'll be amazed.
Aborting chicks is better than killing them post-birth, but even so, egg-laying birds will still eventually be killed off and turned into meat/byproducts -- and the cruelty-free environments don't scale. Chickens just aren't really built to lay that many eggs, and ultimately there doesn't seem to be any way to optimize industry-level farming to care about animal health/happiness. At best we get much more expensive products that appeal to a minority of the market. Especially when you realize that a nontrivial percentage of the eggs you eat are coming from restaurants and as ingredients in pre-made foods, where there's basically no current market pressure to ethically source those materials.
In theory there could be a version of the egg industry that avoided most of these problems (yes, I know some vegans would view that as non-consensual exploitation anyway) but regardless, practice is still a long, long ways away from theory.
I know people like to believe that you can just get cruelty free eggs that solve all of these problems, and you can certainly do a lot better than just buying the cheapest brand -- and I'm not going to shame people, doing better is a good goal to have. A lot of food, even vegan food, has problematic elements that you can dig up, we're all just trying to do a bit better than the default and to be more ethical than we otherwise would be.
But while it would be really convenient if the modern egg industry was ethical, it's just very hard to argue that point.
I don't think they are widely available yet though. I certainly haven't seen them in my country.
As another user alluded to, the "layers" (egg-laying hens) also have a productivity drop very early in their possible lifespans, and are then killed as well.
There are no industrial egg production facilities which feed and give chickens and roosters a place to live out the natural duration of their lives in humane conditions (not cramped in battery cages where they frequently die of infection from pecking each other to death). I did the calculation a while back and found that doing so would result in eggs that cost over $10 each. The reason eggs are so cheap is because male chicks and hens that have passed their productive years are killed, and while alive, the layers are confined to an neverending nightmare of cramped conditions.
are there chickens anywhere that are given hormones?
As far as I have been able to determine, this is a myth, and the reason they grow quickly is selective breeding.
For example, in Australia https://theconversation.com/ten-facts-you-need-to-know-about...
As long as you have good shaking technique, the foam and mouthfeel get pretty close to egg-based methods.
I still use chickpea juice in cocktails to mix it up. But the chance of a salmonella poisoning from eggs in the modern US supply chain is astronomically low. You're at much higher risk from most produce.
If you're really risk-averse, you can always sous vide your eggs at 132 F for 60 minutes. This will pasteurize the surface (where any bacteria live), yet preserve the raw egg texture. (Egg whites and yols typically don't change form until around 140 F)
Immunocompromised individuals may still find these risks unacceptable, and then aquafaba or pasteurization is a great option.
I grew up with unwashed eggs and never gave it much thought, but now I guess that's one more thing to keep in mind (although I live in North America these days)
Somehow a little (probably incorrect) part of me likes to think that the unwashed eggs are more "authentic" and lead to better food - it's not rational thinking at all, and I'm not waiting for salmonella to hit me before I work at changing my mind about that :)
I can't taste the difference in my eggs vs a store bought, white, washed egg.
I can easily see it, though, with a more orange yolk in the fresh eggs, which most people attribute to eating more bugs.
The one thing I'd love to see however is whether we'd find the same proportions of nutrients in a more scientific breakdown too. Humans aren't necessarily able to know purely from the experience itself if something is healthier than something else for them, we're more wired to detect if something is problematic or not and also prone to a whole lot of suggestion. While the tasting test seems to show that the immediate experience isn't conclusively discernible, it doesn't tell us anything about long-term health effects (understandably so, they're not egg-researchers dedicating decade-long funding to figure that one out!).
I have one convert so far, but he didn't see me make the drinks, just the final result.
I'll have to try chickpea juice though since it seems logistically easier than dealing with an egg for a drink.
I'm weird but I feel more squeamish about using the juice from a can of beans than I do using raw egg! Not because I think there's anything dangerous in there, just because it's unpleasant to me on some odd level :)
Neither really seems likely to get me sick though.
Seems absurd now, knowing plastic is in the can!
If anyone else knows the reason for the lining, I'd be very interested in learning more.
No, because of reactions between the contents (particularly acidic contents) and the can.
The can of beans on the fire is a camping archetype - one I've witnessed people mimic first hand. Seems unhealthy, knowing this now.
Basically, you don't want any funny reactions with the metal.
Are you sure there wasn't a contamination issue?
I've been doing a lot of cocktails lately (gee, wonder why). And I do enjoy a flip. I don't make them simply because I don't want to deal with leftover egg yolks. But I tend to throw away aquafaba. Next time I have it, I'll try a flip made with it.
Maybe tonight. Thanks.
Flips are explicitly whole egg cocktails. If you're not using the yolk, you're not making a flip.
If you try to use aquafaba to replace the egg in a flip recipe, you'll end up with a different drink because you won't have the flavour of the yolk.
Flip – An entire egg
Nog – An entire egg plus dairy
Sour – Egg white only
Fizz – Egg plus carbonation
Optionally, but less common: Silver Fizz (egg white), Golden Fizz (egg yolk), Royal Fizz (whole egg) + carbonation.
Pro tip: Instead of doing a dry shake with the egg white, as is traditionally done, try blending it into the cocktail before adding ice. (I use an immersion blender for quicker setup and easier cleanup.) I've found the texture of the foam to be smoother if you do this.
You can take this even further, too: I make a variation of the Mai Tai that's topped with a foam made by blending egg white with passion fruit puree. The foam is the first thing you taste, so you immediately get hit with the sharp, sweet-tart flavor of the passion fruit, before the rest of the (more subtle) flavors kick in. It's delicious.
(I've done it with aquafaba and it works almost as well, although I've only used canned, which generally contains salt. I don't mind it, but it doesn't work in every cocktail.)
[0]: If you're interested in this stuff, I highly recommend the book Liquid Intelligence by Dave Arnold.
I miss the old web.
http://aquafaba.com/history.html
> Joël's Discovers the Foam, Dec 2014
> 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.
Pretty much everything
So it seems these are good times for vegans.
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 did mean products.
As our understanding of fats, sugars and proteins improves, we'll be able to control them even better. Cooking is chemistry, after all :).
That’s something you can start working on now to meet 100% of your egg needs.
Raising hens still means that someone somewhere is hatching eggs and throwing out the rooster chicks, probably grinding them into chicken meal.
If you're a chicken, do you want to live forever in a cage, or be eaten alive by a bigger bird? Neither of those choices sound great to me.
So you prefer to deny this chicken the chance to live any life because you can't make it perfect?
You want to distance yourself so far from cruelty that you don't want to let anything live until you are able to provide better conditions than any mythical god could? ;-)
Maybe you should look for another source.
E.g. IIRC, raising of any chicken/duck/goose/pigeon on land that is not zoned for agriculture has been outlawed in Hong Kong, due to concerns about spreading diseases, especially avian flu.
Plus, most people live in tiny homes with no garden and maybe even no balcony.
Try to cook your own chickpeas, it's super easy, fast if you know the tricks and a hell of a lot cheaper, and I am no vegan, just love them, you also generate less waste.
The trick to the banana is that it's easier to open it from the bottom.
It's harder to get unwrapping an orange right.
You can also just rip them in half. Then run your finger down the exposed sides between flesh/skin. Or bend the skin back from the meat.
Yeah it’s tough.
Try eating a whole chilled orange in the warm shower like an animal. Just make sure your bite gets pulp and peel both.
Honestly I haven't done that since I was a kid - I would "invent" food. My peanut butter and jelly variants included PB& banana, PB&raisins, PB&pickles - nope :( PB&grapes - would roll on the floor, etc...
Signed,
Egg Anaphylaxis
Imagine my delight! Teach me to assume...
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:
As a normal human digestive tract does not contain any anti-oligosaccharide enzymes, consumed oligosaccharides are typically digested by bacteria in the large intestine. This digestion process produces gases such as methane as a byproduct, which are then released as flatulence.
Processing the beans, such as by boiling, soaking, cooking, can leach the indigestible sugars from the beans and significantly reduce, if not entirely eliminate the problem.
Excuse me?
We (queenslanders, specifically) invented the Lamington, their claims not withstanding.
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?!).
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 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.
But for whipped cream, the vegan winner is still old school Rich Whip ready to whip (http://richwhip.com/rich-whip.php), which dates back to 1945. Note that only the ready to whip carton is vegan. The pre-whipped ones contain milk products.
When I cook chickpeas (for Hummus) I sometime boil it twice - the first time to source aquafaba and the second time with vegetables added for the Hummus itself.
Also, there's probably some other place in the world with a great aquafaba chocolate mousse.
> 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. -- https://www.vegancoach.com/why-discard-bean-soaking-water.ht...
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?
Typically the liquid used is from canned chickpeas, which have been cooked, which ought to diminish those sugars.
If you're cooking beans at home, you might want to add carrot and onion peels for flavoring the beans. The resulting broth will be very flavorful and worth saving, but less useful for baking, since it's not neutrally flavored.
Interestingly, [1] says:
> It appears that cooking beans to the point where they might be considered edible is more than sufficient to destroy virtually all of the hemagglutinating activity of lectins.
But then the authors seem somewhat puzzled as to why anyone is reported symptoms of lectin poisoning - who's eating beans that are inedible in texture and hardness? They hypothesize raw food junkie's in salads.
EDIT: I'm more skeptical now that any conclusions can be drawn from this paper. They mention leaching as an important factor at one point, so maybe heat just makes leaching happen at an appreciable rate. And your uncooked water might still have lectin at levels they couldn't observe (since we're looking at it indirectly by only measuring the bean's content) and still be toxic. You only need 5 raw kidney beans to have symptoms.
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621....
I found a more recent paper [1] that concludes it is beneficial to soak the beans and then discard the soaking water prior to cooking.
I prepare dry beans regularly and almost never discard the soaking water. Time to reconsider!
[1] https://nuppre.paginas.ufsc.br/files/2014/04/2010-Fernandes-...
My usual process for cooking chickpeas is:
- Soak overnight in a bowl. Throw this water out.
- Boil for several hours in new water. Save this water, and boil it down further to make aquafaba.
Not all chickpea recipes allow for this; for example, falafel is usually made with chickpeas that have been soaked but not boiled.
For 2 cups dry chickpeas + 8 cups water I sometimes cook it down for an extra hour on low heat.
https://www.soscuisine.com/blog/top-5-confusing-fodmap-foods...
Definitely, the wheat starch mixture you get when cooking pasta is a great emulsifier for fat-based pasta sauces.
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?
Yes that's exactly it.
"butter, cheeses"
What eggwhites does it replace in butter?
I'd imagine aquafaba's unique properties allow you to build "butter" around its structure to simulate the dairy ingredient we are familiar with.
It's not just a 1-1 egg substitute.
Thanks for the info :)
My apologies if I missed something obvious on the site. I just see that kidney bean liquid isn't good enough.
Might not necessarily be better, just different to satisfy the claim "BPA free".
What about lectins, phytates/phytic acid, phytohemagglutinin, gas, etc?
Aquafaba by definition is made from beans that have been heat treated > 100C, and chickpeas have the least amount of lectins and phytates. If you're worried, use canned or home cooked chickpeas and avoid the other beans. There are over 20,000 members in the development group, and it's rare for people to report issues with gas, though some have.
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.
You can see a list of invited reposts at https://news.ycombinator.com/invited.
If anyone sees a great, forgotten submission in the HN archives, please let us know at hn@ycombinator.com so we can consider inviting a repost. There are tons of these, like amber in rock.
Update: After paying more attention to what it's all about I now find it very interesting.
I felt it was interesting enough to post then not only because it's rather unexpected, and useful if you want to avoid eggs in your food, but also because it's new.
I had just realized that day that the entire concept of using aquafaba as egg white replacement has not been around for very long. I mean the Wiki page says that the first recipe for meringues using aquafaba was published in 2015.
I think it's really cool that such things are being discovered still. I mean the recipe for egg-based meringues is probably a few hundred years old [2] although sources are obscure. To have a vegan replacement using basically two ingredients appear six years ago is just cool! :)
Cooking in general is a tinkerers dream in that regard.