My First Aquafaba Adventure!

If you're new to veganism or just veg-curious, you might be wondering what that weird A-word word in the headline is. Aquafaba is the latest amazing advancement in the world of vegan food science. Somehow, in late 2014, someone discovered that whipped chickpea brine makes a good egg substitute for baking and makes a mean frothy meringue. They called it "aquafaba" 'cause that's Latin for bean water.

Yep, bean water "eggs." That's the new thing. And while it sounds plum crazy, it's actually delicious. And I'd go so far as to call this discovery a vegan miracle. I'm a member of the Vegan Meringue Hits & Misses group on Facebook, and every day, people post wondrous pictures of all their aquafaba hits (meringue pies, pizza crusts, cookies, even French-style macarons) and misses (hey, it happens). Even though I've been following the board for awhile, I kept putting off trying aquafaba (from here on out, I'll just refer to it as AF) for myself until I found just the right recipe.

And then one day, a few weeks back, someone on the board mentioned AF marshmallow cream in the comments section. WHAT?! I used to love fluffernutter sandwiches, and I haven't seen vegan Ricemellow Creme for sale anywhere in years (do they still make that stuff?). So I googled and came across Fettle Vegan's Fluffernutter Sandwich recipe. I drained a can of chickpeas, added sugar, cream of tartar, and xantham gum, according to the recipe's instructions. And look what happened!

That's from 1/2 cup of chickpea brine! It made about four cups of the creamiest, dreamiest, fluffiest marshmallow cream!

I slapped it on a sandwich and let my childhood fluffernutter memories wash over me. Not only did this look like marshmallow cream, it also tasted like it!

Now that I've broken my AF seal, it's on! I can't wait to experiment with all kinds of recipes!