Snowballs

Yesterday after I got home from work I decided to make two dinners. One for that day, and one for tonight.

So I made a stew with dumplings for last night's dinner, and an eggplant, chickpea and sweet potato curry for tonight.

That left me with the juice from one can of chickpeas. Of course, it could not be thrown out. I had to do some experimenting. Although I have used aquafaba for so many things in the past, I have only made meringues once. I have not tried marshmallow, or macarons.

I decided to just start with the meringue, not sure at the time what I was going to make. I then decided to add some xanthan gum to see what would happen, and then one thing lead to another, and voila!!! Vegan snowballs :)

I had been thinking about making snowballs for a long time, but these were really not planned.

Please note that I have never worked with xantham gum before, so I have no idea if they really need baking or they would set on their own. To err on the side of caution, I would make them again, exactly the same way :)

I must say, I never imagined that they'd be so easy. It takes long because of the waiting for them to cool, but if you know how to work with xanthan you may find that you don't need to do all the waiting or baking. Let me know please :)

Ingredients

2/3 cup aqua faba ( I used the juice from one can of Macro Organic Chickpeas from Woolworths)
1 cup caster sugar
1 pinch of cream of tartar
3/4 tsp xanthan gum
1-2 tbs strawberry flavouring (I used Queens, but any flavour you want to use is fine, just as long as there is no oil in it)

1 block of vegan chocolate (I used Whittakers Dark Ghana, however found it a bit too bitter, I would prefer the Coles Dark Chocolate or another brand)

2-3 TBS of desiccated coconut

Method

1. Pre heat your oven to 100C (212 F).
2. Prepare two cookie trays by lining them with non stick paper.
3. Place aquafaba in your stand mixer with a balloon whisk attachment. Add cream of tartar and set to whisk on high until light and fluffy. Start adding the sugar one tablespoon at a time until it is all incorporated. Keep whisking.
4. Add flavourings, and mix well. Then add xanthan gum, and whisk for a couple of more minutes. The mixture will start to pull away from the sides.
5. Let it sit for about 10 minutes then, place it in a piping bag with a large piping tube. Preferably round, however I only had a star tip (Loyal No 17) so that is what I used.
6. Squeeze the bag, until you get the size you want, then twist the bag around, pulling up, until you are able to detach the tip from the marshmallow. Repeat until all the mix is used up. You do not need to space them more than two or so cms as they do not expand.
7. Place them in the oven for 30 minutes, or until they feel dry to the touch, they should not stick to your fingers. You do not want them to be crunchy or to have any color. If they start to color then your oven is too hot. Leave the door ajar and leave them until the oven is completely cool. I left mine overnight.
8. Using a double boiler, melt your chocolate. One block is able to cover most of the marshmallow. I used a plastic glove to grab the marshmallow and dip it in the chocolate, making sure all sides were covered, then placed on a piece of non stick baking paper. Once you have one tray done, sprinkle lightly with coconut.

Try not to eat them all at once. They're really good!!!!!