Application of Chickpea Aquafaba as Egg White Replacer in Meringue

Yuo, Shing Wei (2020) Application of Chickpea Aquafaba as Egg White Replacer in Meringue. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

The rising trend of vegetarian food has led to the use of plant proteins as alternative to animal-based proteins such as eggs in food systems for consumers with vegetarian diet or those with an egg allergy to fulfill their body nutrition requirements. In this study, cooking liquid of chickpea (Cicer arietinum) which known as aquafaba, was used as an egg white replacer in the meringue production. The aquafaba is used as a foaming agent to help in creating the airy texture of meringue. Aquafaba was prepared by cooking the chickpeas at 20, 40 and 60 min. The effect of cooking time on chickpea aquafaba was evaluated through physico-chemical, protein content and foaming properties. The increased of cooking time improved the protein content and foaming properties of aquafaba. The optimum cooking time for chickpea aquafaba was determined at 60 min for the highest protein content at 23.90%, foaming expansion at 181.11%, and foaming stability at 31.53%. Whipping tests were conducted to determine the optimum whipping time to form stable foam (stiff peaks) with and without sugar addition. The optimum whipping times for the egg white, commercial aquafaba and 60 minutes CT aquafaba with sugar addition were 171, 451 and 993 seconds, respectively, which achieved > 95% of foaming liquid stability. Three different types of meringue samples including the egg white, commercial aquafaba and 60 minutes CT aquafaba which had been whipped at optimum whipping time were produced. The 60 minutes CT aquafaba meringue had the highest carbohydrate (92.49%) and ash content (2.61%) but with the lowest crude fat and moisture content. Quantitative descriptive analysis (QDA), acceptance and preference test were conducted among the meringue samples. With a lower chickpea and egg aroma, the 60 minutes CT aquafaba meringue had the highest score in overall acceptance and was preferred mostly by 50% of the panelists.