Monday 13 January 2014

Vegan Meringue - 2

Following on from my first attempt to make vegan meringues...  I decided to try again with a few modifications...

In my first attempt, the separation of the linseed goo was a messy affair... and one that can be resolved with a piece of cheesecloth and a few bulldog clips...

1.   I am using roughly 9 times as much water as linseed.  So 3 rounded tablespoons (50ml) of linseed and and 450 ml of water.  Roughly...

2.   Heat the linseed in the water until it boils and then simmer for ~20 minutes.

In the picture below I had used 75 ml of seeds and 600 ml of water.

3.  Using bulldog clips, clip the cheesecloth over a bowl, and pour the linseed and water into it and allow the goo to filter through... Use a spoon to stir the seeds carefully to get as much liquid from the mixture.  You could leave it for a while... then when you feel it's read, carefully unclip each bulldog clip one by one gathering up the edges to make it into a bundle... (or spoon most of the seeds out until it's easy to remove).

4.  Pop the bowl of linseed goo into the fridge for half an hour...

5.  Then I got out my hand blender and slowly started blending it.  By about 4 minutes you could begin to see the air getting trapped.. I turned the blender up to high. I think it should have been up on high from the start.  Because I passed the 8 minutes that is recommended for eggs... and then passed about 10 minutes.  I stopped when I reached an almost peak-forming foam.  I have no photos of what it looks like this time... see my last post because it looks pretty much the same.

6.  Add sugar.  Now if I were making meringues with eggs I'd be adding powdered sugar about 1 spoon per egg white?  ish... apparently.  So I had to guess.  I discovered, reading online about egg foam, that you can't add the sugar too soon, because otherwise the sugar molecules compete with the linseed protein molecules for the water.  The proteins must trap the air and water and then you slowly fold the sugar into the mix..

7.  Bake in an oven... Now this time I put them in at about 140 C... but they began to rise... so I turned it down to 120 C and then 100 C... and even that might have been too hot for them.  I left them there until I began to feel uncomfortable about them being in their too long... about an hour or so...

8.  And they came out dome-like.. with an airy centre.  But far too much air ... so they broke up...


When trying to lift them off the pan, they broke up into small fragile shards..   but several people will contest that they do in fact taste like meringues..


Next time... how to make a more solid linseed meringue...

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