Red Kidney Bean Aquafaba Meringues

My dad was, and probably still is, the very opposite of wasteful. He had a bucket in the shower to collect the cold water before you got in, and used it later for flushing the toilet. He'd put on more clothes, rather than turning on the heater. Food scraps would be eaten where possible, or else taken out to compost.

It pains me just as much to throw food away, which is why I have experimented with eating carrot tops, and cooking with sourdough starter which no longer smelt right. The other night, I made a chili using tinned red kidney beans, and suddenly recalled reading about a recent discovery involving the bean liquid: named aquafaba, it turns out the thick and frothy brine can be whipped up just like egg whites!

While chickpea water has the most neutral flavour, I decided to try making meringues with the red kidney bean liquid I had on hand. What started out as a reddish-brown gloop became paler as it aerated in the food processor.

Red kidney bean liquid before whipping.

The original recipe from Goose Wohlt only calls for 1/2 cup sugar and the liquid from one can of beans, but I didn't seem to be able to get the ingredients to form stiff peaks, so I added cream of tartar and vanilla as well, based on the recipe from Kids with Food Allergies. It took me half an hour to realise I had left the food processor blades in, before switching to the whisk attachment.

Mixture became pale and thick after whipping.

Using the egg whisk gave a much fluffier result, but I still couldn't get the mixture to form stiff peaks, and my food processor was getting hot. I went ahead and spooned the whipped concoction onto baking paper and put it in the oven anyway.

Any peaks disappeared quickly.

Depending on which recipe you pick, you are supposed to bake the meringues at 100C/200F for 1.5 hours, 120C/250F for 40 minutes, or use a mix of temperatures. I baked mine at 100C for 1 hour, then turned off the oven and left them inside overnight.

Baking the aquafaba meringues.

Because I didn't put my meringues into an airtight container in a timely manner, I baked them again the next day to dry them out properly. You need to wait for them to cool first, not just to avoid the moisture being trapped in the storage box, but also because they are soft and sticky while warm—I tried pulling one off the baking paper straight away and the bottom stuck, but those which I removed after cooling slid off effortlessly.

Aquafaba meringue stuck to baking paper while warm.

I'm not sure why the surface of my meringues seemed to have little circles on them, but the result was light and crunchy. Overall, I think they were actually closer to hokey pokey than meringues, because they stuck to your teeth when you ate them, and there seemed to be a bit of malt or caramel flavour.

The aquafaba meringues were light and crunchy.

Breaking the crunchy bits over fresh strawberries and coconut yoghurt greatly reduced the teeth-sticking, and made a tasty vegan and gluten free dessert.

Aquafaba meringues with strawberries and coconut yoghurt.

Apparently, aquafaba can be used to make a variety of different (vegan) dishes, such as:

• chocolate mousse
• strawberry ice cream
• genoise or sponge cake with aquafaba icing
• mayonnaise
• butter
• and even mozzarella cheese!

You can also use it as an egg substitute (including as egg wash) by replacing each egg in many recipes with 3 Tbsp aquafaba.

I was pleased with how my meringues turned out, and amazed by their transformation from a slimy liquid into light and crunchy pillows. I would be tempted to retry these with chickpea brine, and see how aquafaba works in savoury recipes as well. No more tipping bean liquid down the drain—my dad would be pleased!

This post is part of Our Growing Edge, a monthly blogging event aimed at inspiring us to try new things. This month, it is hosted by Jazzmine from Dash of Jazz, with a theme of Nostalgia.

Homemade Sourdough Pita Bread

It's funny how one thing leads to another. I was looking for recipes to use up the excess thyme we have in the garden, and came across Bint Rhoda's za'atar bread. From there, it was only a link away from khubiz arabi cooked in a cast iron pan, which inspired me to compare it to pita bread.

My homemade sourdough pita bread.

Susan's pita bread on her Wild Yeast blog looked amazing, seemed pretty simple to make, and used up a lot of sourdough starter, so I decided to go with her recipe. I generally try to follow the instructions carefully, the first time I make something, but I discovered I didn't have quite as much starter as I thought, which meant I ended up only using 320g of it rather than her rather exact 376g.

It became too late for baking, so I put the dough into the fridge, where it sat for 2 days before I had time to do anything with it. To bring it back to the right temperature, I transferred it, in its covered bowl, into a warm water bath in the kitchen sink. Unfortunately, some water got into the bowl, and I hastily patted the dough dry with a paper towel. Fortunately, that was the last of the mishaps I encountered.

I divided the dough into balls, flattened each one to a few millimetres thick, put two or three of them onto a baking sheet, and slid everything onto a pre-heated pizza stone in the oven. It didn't take long before the bread started puffing up!

Dough rolled out into flat rounds.

Starting to puff up.

Bigger bubbles.

Conjoined bubbles.

It was a lot of fun watching the dough rise in the oven, sometimes with multiple bubbles joining up into a giant air pocket. I was worried that it may not be fully cooked through, so left the bread in the oven for a few extra minutes, which made the pitas a little dry.

I used to wonder how bakers got the holes into pita bread. Who knew it would be so simple? You can and should experience the magic too, whether you choose to use supermarket yeast or a sourdough starter!

A pita pocket.

This post is part of Our Growing Edge, a monthly blogging event aimed at inspiring us to try new things. This month, it is hosted by Kerene from The Dream Baker.

WOOP! Easy Midweek Meals

WOOP! Makes you feel happy already, right? The first time I heard about the ready-to-cook meal delivery service (actually short for World On Our Plate), it was because I was on the TOMeTTE mailing list, and founder Thomas Dietz, whose new venture this was, offered us a $25 voucher to try it. I liked the idea of being able to create a tasty meal in 15 minutes, but then promptly forgot about it. I came across a thoughtful review of the initiative from Genie at Bunny Eats Design, again with a $25 discount offer, and again I filed it away in the back of my mind as something I needed to look into. It wasn't until someone at work had a flyer about it that I actually did something!

Part of a WOOP flyer.

And do I did! Not only did I sign myself up for a WOOP box with three meals inside, I bought shares in the company through Snowball Effect, even before I tried the service. It wasn't that I thought WOOP would be better than all current and future competitors; rather, it was the only such company that gave me a chance to have a slice of the pie, and I am guessing that having a quick and easy dinner on hand would be more and more important in our busy lives. So there you go, full disclosure, though I will still give you an honest opinion below.

Ordering my WOOP Box

Getting started was pretty easy: just create an account, select your plan (I picked Table for Two for $109 per week, then used a $25 discount voucheer), and choose your delivery date (always a Sunday between 4-8pm). The only thing that I found unexpected was the 6-day lead time you need to start or stop your subscription. That's quite a bit of forward planning required!

WOOP Box Delivery

On the Saturday before delivery, I got an email telling me what the three meals for the week were, so even though I wasn't there when the courier turned up on Sunday, I knew what would be in the box.

My first WOOP box.

The ingredients came in discrete packets, colour-coded by meal. The same coloured spot was printed onto the matching menu to make everything crystal clear. In case you were feeling guilty from all the packaging you generated, the bottom of each recipe reminds you that the box and ice pack are recyclable (supposedly the vacuum pack film and trays are too, but I don't think the council would take them). There was even a little handwritten thank-you note inside!

WOOP box unpacked.

An index card told you what you needed for each meal, and I checked that everything was in the box. The main thing that confused me was that there were four tomatoes which weren't colour-coded. The fish meal called for "tomatoes", and the steak meal listed "small vine tomatoes" even though the name of the dish had "cherry tomatoes". I decided to use two tomatoes for each.

Index and recipe cards.

Meal #1: Fresh Monkfish Infused with Tamarind Served on a Bed of Rice with Poppadoms and Snow Peas

Because of the expiry dates of the ingredients, you basically had to eat your meals in a particular order. Our first dinner had the most components, sounded the most exciting, and was actually better than we expected. And it took us less than 15 minutes to put together!

Ingredients for monkfish curry meal.

First, we opened the packet of raw monkfish and tipped out any liquid (though we briefly wondered if we were meant to do that, since there was no mention of it in the instructions). Then we poured in the tamarind marinade (labelled "fish marinade"), and mixed it around. It was good to see the marinade ingredients listed on the bottom of the container.

Marinating fish.

Meanwhile, we prepared the vegetables, and exclaimed over what a great idea it was to leave coriander attached to the root.

Coriander with root.

We also zapped the poppadoms in the microwave to make them crisp and bubbly, though they emitted a strange smell and weren't as crisp as the ones you get at a restaurant.

Poppadoms before and after 20 seconds in the microwave.

Then we basically heated up the curry sauce and poached the fish in it, and chucked the rice in the microwave.

Curry sauce.

That was it! We threw everything onto a plate, and devoured it. We didn't care for the poppadoms, but the curry itself was fragrant and beautifully flavoured, tangy with plenty of ginger. We would happily eat this again!

Monkfish curry - not that pretty, but tasted great!

Meal #2: Softly Baked Chicken Thighs Served with Traditional Spanish Patatas Bravas

Our second meal was even easier to prepare, but took longer because you needed to preheat your oven before baking the chicken and potatoes.

Fewer ingredients for baked chicken.

I was pleasantly surprised to find whole cherry tomatoes in the sauce, though it tasted a bit thin compared to the complexity of flavours we experienced the previous night. After 20 minutes in the oven, the chicken and potatoes heated through, but didn't really crisp up. Perhaps it could have done with a higher temperature.

Baked chicken and potatoes.

The portions were large (we didn't manage to eat the three chicken thighs), but sadly, we didn't enjoy our dinner as much as before.

Meal #3: Juicy Sirloin Steak Served with Salsa Verde, Roasted Kumara, Cherry Tomatoes and Mesclun Salad

For our last WOOP meal, we baked the kumara for longer and at a higher temperature than specified, and also cooked the steak the way we normally do.

Steak meal ingredients.

The end result was actually pretty similar to what we might have put together ourselves, except that we would have cooked the kumara from scratch, and not have had the salsa verde (we didn't have much of it anyway because its strongly garlicky flavour overpowered the rest of the meal).

Simple steak with kumara and salad.

In fact, we would probably have cooked a better meal ourselves, because we could have done a better job of the kumara, bought better meat, and picked a more interesting vegetable like Brussels sprouts, courgettes or asparagus. Mesclun is the kind of thing we buy when we can't be bothered, and if we were to sign up for a food delivery service, it would be to get away from that.

Still pink in the middle.

Conclusion

I think there's a demand for home-cooked meals that are quick to prepare, yet fresh and delicious. If all the meals had been like our first one, we would be chuffed. Unfortunately, you can't know what you will have in your box until after you have ordered it, and we had food envy looking at what Genie got in hers (she only had one set of boring leaves, and at least it came with edible flowers!).

There is no point in keeping the recipe cards, because you would need the prepped ingredients to make use of them. Having said that, I am often home so late that I would pick this over cooking from scratch, and it is more fun and fresh than a freezer meal, and more healthy than a takeaway.

At around $18 per meal per person, it feels a bit too expensive for what it is, especially when I consider how basic meal #3 was. However, it does include delivery so it saves on travel as well as cooking time, and as this service is still new, I am confident the team will be able to take on feedback and improve their offerings. Looking forward to trying this again, when they have had more time to work on their menus!

This post is part of Our Growing Edge, a monthly blogging event aimed at inspiring us to try new things. This month, it is hosted by Hannah from Love The Little Bakery.

Learning My ABCs (Asian Birthday Cakes)

Mainstream Western cakes that people bring to the office tend to be sweet, dense and moist—think the chocolate whisky cake from Rocket Kitchen, for instance. In contrast, Asian bakery cakes (which people tend to buy for special occasions like birthdays) differ in a few ways:

1. they are light, soft, and airy
2. they are less sweet
3. they tend to have multiple layers
4. they are covered in whipped cream
5. they tend to have detailed, maybe even over-the-top, decorations
6. bonus points for fresh fruit
7. Asian flavours like taro, durian, mango, or green tea cakes are available

Fresh cream gateau from the Gateau House website.

While you or I could easily whip up a standard cake ourselves by following various recipes from a magazine or cookbook, not many people attempt to make the Western-style cakes* that are sold in Asian countries like Hong Kong, Korea or Vietnam (I was surprised to read this style of cake is also eaten in Mauritius.). Partly, I think it is because people in Asia don't tend to have an oven (they are more likely to steam cakes instead). But it doesn't help that there are not many recipes published for the cakes sold in Asian bakeries**, and they are often quite elaborate and challenging to make at home.

* I say "Western-style cakes" because traditional Asian cakes are a different beast, from the thick and dense mooncakes, to the chewy, steamed, bite-sized kuih.

** By "Asian bakeries", I mean bakeries similar to those you would find in Asian countries, not old-school bakeries that happen to be run by Asians.

There are now plenty of Asian bakeries in Auckland, including Gateau House, La Couronne, Classic Bake House, Well-done Bakery, and Rio Kitchen.

The "Sponge"

It turns out the part of the cake which I had always thought of as "sponge" is only sponge in the general sense, an umbrella term for foam cake. The particular kind of foam cake used in Asian bakery cakes is actually a reduced sugar chiffon. You'll end up with a lighter texture than if you used a standard sponge recipe anyway.

Type of Foam Cake	Eggs	Fat	Texture	Other Comments
Sponge	Whites and yolks whipped separately	None (other than egg yolks)	Firm, yet well aerated, relatively dry
Genoise	Whole eggs	Butter	Airy, relatively dry	Rich flavour from butter. Less sweet than other foam cakes. Eggs are warmed before beating in sugar.
Chiffon	Whites and yolks whipped separately	Oil	Moist, light and springy	Rich flavour from oil. Often has added baking powder.
Angel Food Cake	Whites only	None	Delicate, light and airy	Highest sugar content to support egg whites.

There are all sorts of tips and tricks out there for baking chiffon cake, but the most important ones I found were:

• using an ungreased aluminium pan, so the cake can climb up the sides
• turning it upside down immediately after baking, optionally resting the pan on four glasses

The Cream

As you will see, the whipped cream topping was the part I struggled with the most. Freshly whipped cream tastes amazing, but I either overwhipped it and made it grainy, or it wouldn't hold its shape, and the cake looked like a mess by the time we went to cut it. No matter how hard I tried, my whipped cream did not have the amazing airiness and staying power of the commercial cakes.

I'm not sure what professional bakers use, but I wonder if it might possibly be an imitation whipped cream like Cool Whip or Pastry Pride, though I haven't seen these for sale in New Zealand, and I assume the flavour wouldn't be that great. The Cool Whip ingredients look pretty unappetising, with the main ones being hydrogenated vegetable oil and high fructose corn syrup, and containing less than 2% cream. Bakel's NZ has a new Easy Whip product that is made of dextrose, skim milk powder, vegetable oil, sugar, and stabilisers and emulsifiers. I guess that might be what you are eating if you buy something from those cheap, run-down bakeries.

Cool Whip Original ingredients from Kraft Brands website.

According to some posts online, whipped cream in bakeries holds up longer because it has a higher fat content, or has stabilisers added, such as pectin, xanthum gum or guar gum. Dr Oetker's Whip It product (available to home cooks in North America at least) contains dextrose, modified corn starch, and tricalcium phosphate.

You can achieve amazingly airy whipped cream by using canned whipped cream, as in Tatua's Dairy Whip. Nitrous oxide (N2O) is mixed into the cream and when pressure is released, foams the cream up to four times its liquid volume (compared to whipping by hand which only doubles it). Unfortunately, this whipped cream does not last long, and will go back to liquid form after 20 - 30 minutes.

Up until Lewis Road Creamery started selling double cream (48% fat) a couple of years ago, there was only one kind of cream for sale in New Zealand, with around 37% fat. I can't imagine bakeries making cakes with premium quality organic double cream, so I looked at what methods people used to stabilise their whipped cream:

• Adding milk powder - this was actually the only method I tried as I happened to have milk powder I wanted to use up. It didn't seem to make much difference for me though.
• Dissolving gelatin in hot water, then mixing into cream - the most popular method on the web, but you have to use it quickly after making it. Some also add cream of tartar.
• Using agar agar - vegetarian substitute for gelatin, either using the same amount or less.
• Cooking cornstarch before beating into cold cream - easy method but can give a grainy texture or floury flavour.
• Mixing in crème fraîche - also makes the cream tangier.
• Using processed ingredients like marshmallows, piping gel or pudding mix

Also, there's a buttercream recipe (fresh cream not needed) with rave reviews, which apparently has the texture of light whipped cream and is not too sweet. I'll definitely have to give this a go some time!

Cake Attempt #1: Chestnut Chiffon Cake

My parents gave me a bag of fresh chestnuts, so I decided to bake a cake with them in it. It really is a labour of love, because shelling chestnuts is a time-consuming exercise! Most recipes tell you to cut an X into the flat side, but I found it easier cutting a single slit along the rounded side of the chestnuts.

Shelling roasted chestnuts.

Although I had a tray full of roasted chestnuts, there was not enough there for the chestnut chiffon cake recipe I wanted to try, so I supplemented it with tinned chestnuts too.

Canned chestnuts (left) and roasted fresh chestnuts (right).

The sponge came out beautifully, though it did not rise much, presumably because I used baking paper, and did not invert the cake after baking.

Chestnut chiffon cake.

I used the fresh chestnuts in the lighter whipped cream topping, and the canned chestnuts in the intensely dark and delicious caramelly filling (enhanced with a nut flavoured liqueur).

Mixing chestnut cream.

I need to work on my technique a bit as the final cake was on the dense side, but the flavours were worth the effort!

A slice of chestnut chiffon cake.

Cake Attempt #2: Taro Chiffon Cake

Making a taro cake is a lot easier, because you can simply buy frozen taro from your local Asian grocer and steam it—it's not such a fiddly process as boiling, roasting and shelling fresh chestnuts.

Mashing steamed taro.

I used a Japanese chiffon cake recipe, and Eupho Cafe's taro filling (minus the coffee creamer). The chiffon cake came out very springy, but I found its flavour overwhelmingly eggy.

Japanese chiffon cake.

The taro filling was lumpy and solid when I first mixed it, but once I put it into the food processor for a few minutes, it turned into a smooth and fluffy spread.

Taro filling, smooth filling on top, lumpy filling at the bottom.

If it weren't for the strong egg flavour in the sponge, this would have been an excellent cake!

Cake Attempt #3: Durian Cake

In an attempt to reduce the egginess of the cake, I tried making an angel food cake, which only uses egg whites. Unfortunately, I lined the bottom of the pan with a circle of baking paper this time, and it made a crater when the cake was turned upside down.

Curved bottom of angel food cake.

It was also cloyingly sweet, though it did have a very soft and light texture. I ended up chopping it into cubes, coating it in dark chocolate, and palming it off to workmates.

Levelling the bottom of the cake.

Next, I tried Nasi Lemak Lover's Vanilla Sponge Cake. It had me baking the cake for over an hour, which was a lot longer than some other recipes, though admittedly at a lower temperature and for a higher volume of batter. The top of the cake split, and the outside seemed to have browned too much, so it was a bit dry and overcooked.

Overcooked cake.

I tried the recipe again, this time lowering the temperature at the end, turning the oven off altogether for the last 10 minutes. It rose promisingly high...

Cake rose high.

... but still cracked after further baking.

Flattened and cracked.

Although I turned it upside down for cooling, it actually shrank upwards (away from the bench), and ended up being pretty dark as well. The taste and texture of the sponge were pretty much perfect once I cut away the unsightly parts though.

Cake shrank on cooling.

With the chiffon sorted, I mixed up my own durian filling using about half a frozen durian (it takes a good few hours to thaw!) and about the same amount of sweetened whipped cream. I should have used a bit more sugar to bring out the flavour of the durian, but it seemed fine on its own, and I forgot to take into account the fact that the sponge part was not very sweet either.

Creamy flesh of thawed frozen durian.

I decorated the cake with whipped cream mixed with a bit of milk powder and icing sugar, and also added some slices of dried durian candy. Not the most beautiful of creations, but you'll love this if you like the aroma of durian!

My durian chiffon cake,

Cake Attempt #4: Mango Chiffon Cake

For my final cake, I made a mango chiffon cake with a layer of pudding mix in the middle, as well as custard (okay, maybe pastry cream is more accurate) and tinned mangoes.

I used the same chiffon recipe as before, but placed a piece of foil over the pan to protect the top of the cake once it started browning. I didn't get the same splitting and dark colouring I saw earlier, but it still sank even after being cooled upside down.

Some sinking in my chiffon.

Once you slice the top off, it doesn't really matter anymore though!

Chiffon cake, sliced horizontally.

I added less water to the mango flavoured pudding mix than instructed, so that it would have a more intense fragrance, but it was very sweet, so I thinned it out a bit again. I poured the liquid into a springform cake tin lined with baking paper, which wrinkled up from the moisture, as you can see in the picture below. After refrigeration, it set into a very slippery round of jelly which smelt more mangoey than real mangoes themselves.

Jelly-like mango pudding layer.

Although the jelly sat on top of the cake layer with no problems, the next layer (pastry cream with mango pieces which I dolloped on top) threatened to slide right off.

Pastry cream and mango layer on top of the pudding layer.

Indeed, that is exactly what happened, after the cake was transported to a restaurant, put in the fridge, and taken out again at the end of our meal. The entire top half of the cake shifted slideways, making it look like a spectacularly chaotic heap.

Top half of the cake slid to one side.

Looks aside, the cake tasted better than I expected, thanks in no small part to the Asian mango pudding mix, which also added an interesting texture contrasting with the softness of the cream and the sponginess of the chiffon. Thanks, artificial flavours and colours!

A very thin but tasty slice of mango chiffon cake.

This post is part of Our Growing Edge, a monthly blogging event aimed at inspiring us to try new things. This month, it is hosted by Pia from Joie de Vivre and Cupcakes, with the theme "party with friends".