This recipe for Aqua Faba Chocolate Mousse was a real eye opener for me. I made it for the first time when we had vegan guests staying, well to be more accurate, I did quite a bit of experimenting before I unleashed it on paying guests…
As soon as I found out about Aqua Faba I loved it’s insanity; for those who don’t know, it’s water you’ve used for soaking pulses. Tins of chickpeas are the most commonly used, but any pulse, tinned, bottled or soaked yourself will do provided the consistency is right. You might have noticed that when you drain a tin of pulses, the water bubbles up. That’s because it contains long protein molecules just like egg whites do. It means that you can whip it up and use it in place of egg whites.
Once I’d got over the madness of using chick pea water to make chocolate mousse I started to experiment with getting the recipe to work reliably. What I found was that the mousse was better than an egg based mousse because the texture is lighter and smoother. There’s no taste of chick peas (just like there’s no taste of egg in a conventional mousse), and you can’t overwhip because the Aqua Faba is more stable than egg white.
The main thing to get right is the consistency of the chick-pea water. Not surprisingly it needs to be about the same consistency as an egg white. If it’s too thin you can reduce it down, if it’s too thick you can dilute it. The best I’ve found is Freshona chick peas in jars from Lidl. The juice is the perfect consistency for whipping and each jar gives you 230ml of liquid. The chick peas themselves make great hummous.
Anyway, enough waffle, here’s the recipe.
Aqua Faba Chocolate Mousse
Portions: 6
Prep time: 20 mins
Difficulty: easy
Ingredients
230ml Aquafaba (This is what you get from one jar of chick peas, but have a read of what I’ve already said about how thick it needs to be)
200g 50% patissier chocolate
I use a 50% chocolate. You can use stronger but you’ll get a more bitter taste. If you use 70% you might need to add some sort of sweetener such as 2 tbs of sugar or a tablespoon of agave or maple syrup.
Method
1 Begin by melting the chocolate in a bain marie
2 While the chocolate is melting whip the aquafaba until it forms soft peaks.
3. To stop the mousse becoming grainy place 2 large dollops of the aquafaba into the melted chocolate and mix them in thoroughly. (Graininess is the only real problem I’ve had with this recipe, but it’s easily dealt with)
4. Gently fold in the rest of the aquafaba
5. Pour into individual glasses
5. Refrigerate for at least one hour.
You can eat them as they are but I think berries are the perfect accompaniment for this decadent Aqua Faba Chocolate Mousse.
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