Have you heard about aquafaba? It’s the new craze sweeping the vegan cooking world. It can be used to replace the eggwhites in a lot of recipes. And you’ll never guess what it is. The juice from a can of chickpeas!! What?! That’s right…chickpea juice! In fact, you can use the liquid from any cooked legumes. You can read all about aquafaba here. My friend told me about this miracle and I’ve been learning lots about it in this Facebook group.

Now, I’m not vegan, but my family spends a bit of time in Lent during the year, so I’m always on the lookout for any great vegan recipes. I have made vegan meringues with great success and was eager to test out another recipe. I went with vegan chocolate mousse. I wanted to note the recipe here for future reference and family sharing. It’s so pretentious handy when someone asks for a recipe and I can say ‘you can find it on my blog.’

I was amazed at how delicious this vegan chocolate mousse is. No one would ever guess it’s vegan! The coconut cream works perfectly in this and adds a hint of ‘coconutty-ness’ which I really enjoyed.

Vegan Chocolate Mousse
makes approx 8 serves

200g dark chocolate (make sure the chocolate is vegan if necessary)
1/2 cup coconut cream
pinch of salt
1 cup aquafaba (the juice strained from 2 cans of chickpeas)
1/4 cup caster sugar*

Break up the chocolate and add it to a saucepan with the coconut cream and pinch of salt. Heat on low, stirring until the chocolate melts. Once the chocolate is melted, transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl to cool. Stir the mix occasionally as it cools.

Put the aquafaba into a stand mixer and whisk on high speed for several minutes until it forms stiff peaks. The first time you do this you will be amazed at how it’s just like egg whites!

Slowly add the sugar* to the meringue while the mixer is still whisking.

The chocolate mix should hopefully be at room temperature now. Take a big scoop of the meringue and mix it into the chocolate to slacken the mix**. Then carefully fold in the remaining meringue 1/3 at a time. Transfer the mixture to 8 serving bowls/glasses and chill overnight. The mousse will thicken as it cools.

Delicious served with fresh fruit. Enjoy!

 

*The original recipe I came across in the Facebook group used 1/2 cup sugar but I found this too sweet for the chocolate I used.

**The first time I made this I added the chocolate into the meringue, but it lost quite a bit of volume. The mousse was still delicious, but I think you retain more volume by tranferring the chocolate to a bowl and adding the meringue to it rather than the other way around. You could also melt the mixture in the bowl using the double boiler method if preferred.