Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Smookie, The Dark Chocolate, Gluten Free, Vegan S'More

   
   When I was working on designing gluten-free and vegan recipes for CocoaPlanet here in Sonoma, one of the things I kept hearing about was the idea of a S'more. Not just any S'more mind you, but a gluten free and if possible vegan S'more. I've only made marshmallow about twice in my life and since I'm not a fan of the corn syrup, anything that involved it was pretty low on my list. As I said, I'd only done this once before. Then I discovered AquaFaba aka BeanWater
  
   I didn't discover AquaFaba. That was the labor of many vegans over many years who longed for an egg white substitute in cooking and baking and were constantly experimenting, searching for the holy grail of vegan egg whites. Well, after several years, they succeeded and the word went out. The new weapon in the vegan baking arsenal was AquaFaba.
  
   I've known Sanjana  for a number of years through the Indian Food Community. Her site is K.O.Rasoi and she and her creations are amazing. When she first told me about bean water, my initial reaction was thanks but no thanks. The idea of turning the water I've cooked my garbanzos in into desserts was a no go. So I ignored the idea for about a year and then one day my curiosity got the better of me and I started experimenting. After all, there are so many uses for ceces, chickpeas, garbanzos, chole, whatever one calls them, why not do something with the water also. Boy, was I surprised! I started turning out all sorts of vegan and gluten free treats such as these Macarons.

 
   But meanwhile back to Smookies. Working with bean water can be tricky when you're learning, but the learning curve is pretty easy, and these smookies are among the easiest. One of the easiest ways to get started is using a can of Garbanzo beans with no salt added. So grab your beans and let's get Smookieing.


Here's What You Need:

(note:  vegan shortening can  be substitiuted for butter)

Marshmallows
The liquid from 1 can of no salt added garbanzo beans
2 tsp xanathan gum
1/2 cup plus 1/8 cup of caster sugar
1 pinch of salt
  
The Ganache:

8 oz of CocoaPlanet Vanilla Espresso chocolate or any good chocolate broken into pieces
1/2 cup of cream or coconut milk
1 Tbs unsalted or vegan margarine at room temperature

 Here's What To Do:

Bake the chocolate shortbread cookies.
Take them out of the oven.
Let them cool for about 5 minutes then move them to a cooling rack.


Immediately turn the oven down to 200 degrees.
Place the garbanzo liquid in the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment and whip at medium speed for about 4 minutes.


Turn the speed up to high and add in the sugar, salt and xanathan gum one at a time.


 Beat at high speed for about 10 minutes.


The Marshmallow fluff will get stiff and glossy.


When it's done it looks like this.


Put the marshmallow fluff into a pastry bag.


Pipe the fluff onto the top of each cookie.


Place the cookies back on the baking sheet.


Pop them into a 200 degree oven for about 30 minutes. This allows the marshmallow to bind to the cookie.


After 30 minutes remove them and let them cool.
Meanwhile prepare your ganache for dipping.
When the ganache has cooled, dip the cooled marshmallow tops into the cooled ganache.


Let the ganache set.


Place the smookies into an air tight container in the fridge to keep the chocolate coating crisp and the cookies fresh, then serve them up!


There they are, gluten free, and vegan. You'll never go back to Mallowmars again. Coming up next, back to Indian food, a kashmiri recipe for eggplant and apples that's a perfect side for a Meatless Monday feast follow along on Twitter @kathygori

2 comments :

  1. Gluten-free s'mores? I hear that right? Can't even believe it, I MUST try this!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hope you like them Kelly. I really enjoy working with aquafaba and have a lot of gluten free aquafaba recipes to share

    ReplyDelete

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