Anyone who's ever tried substituting egg whites with chickpea water knows the pain of having to use up a can of chickpeas every time you want to bake a cake.
Luckily, TikToker Candice Hutchings (@theedgyveg) has the perfect hack. In a TikTok video, she reveals how you can save the juice from any can of beans every time you cook, meaning you'll always have some spare aquafaba on hand.
@theedgyveg The ice cube hack is a gamechanger when it comes to storing Aquafaba aka Chickpea Water for all your vegan egg white recipes. Its essentially the perfect dupe that can be used to mimic egg whites in baking! #vegan #veganrecipes #foodhack #foodhacks #aquafaba #chickpeas ♬ original sound - Candice The Edgy Veg
The scoop
As Hutchings explains in her video, aquafaba is the liquid that you get in a can of chickpeas, which makes the "perfect egg white substitute." Because it is full of starch, it makes a great binder for baked goods like cakes, just like eggs do. It also whips and creates a foam, which is perfect for meringues.
But a less-known fact, according to Hutchings, is that aquafaba doesn't just come from chickpeas. You can use the liquid from any can of beans, and it will work just as well.
If you cook with beans a lot, that's a lot of potential aquafaba. To make sure none of it goes to waste, Hutchings pours liquid from her bean cans into ice cube trays every time she uses them.
This aquafaba can then be put in the freezer and preserved until she needs it.
As Hutchings points out, one thing to be mindful of is color — if you're cooking with kidney beans, then you may want to save that darker-colored aquafaba for something like chocolate brownies.
One ice cube usually equates to between 1 and 1.5 tablespoons, Hutchings says — and, as she added in the comments, that's roughly a proportion of one cube to one egg.
"It's essentially the perfect dupe that can be used to mimic egg whites in baking!" she says in the caption for the video.
How it's helping
Hutchings' ice-cube trick is a wildly convenient hack for vegan baking. It's far easier to reach for an aquafaba ice cube than it is to pop to the shop for a can of chickpeas.
It's also much cheaper. If you're buying a fresh can of chickpeas every time you bake, you could be spending a dollar more than you need to per cake — a 15-ounce can of organic garbanzos from Walmart, for instance, cost $1.16 as of mid-May.
You're unlikely to use the whole can of beans in one baking session, so chances are you're pouring leftover aquafaba down the drain. Freezing your aquafaba into small portions for later use will help you cut down on food waste.
Food waste is a costly problem for Americans, who throw out an estimated 119 billion pounds of food each year — that costs the average person a little more than $3.50 each day, which quickly adds up.
What everyone's saying
Many TikTokers were blown away by Hutchings' cooking hack, while others were commenting with their own baking tips.
"I had no idea that it could be from any bean! Thank you for the info," one TikToker wrote.
"Wait ... WHAT? Life changing that you don't only have to use chickpeas," another commented.
"I make candied almonds with aquafaba as the binder," one commenter added.
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