Chickpea Ice Cream! (150 kcal for entire thing in picture or 43 kcal for just the ice cream part)

Hey!

Today I am bringing you another weird dessert, but no coffee or gelatin this time. For this one we gonna need a can of chickpeas instead, and mainly not for chickpeas themselves, but for chickpea water (officially known as aquafaba, which literally means bean water).

I will describe all pictured components, but part one is the only one that matters and it is only 43 kcal, you can stop there and ignore the rest, that is just for fun and completeness of experience!

A. Aquafaba Ice Cream

For this one we gonna need:

1. All the goo you can get from a can of chickpeas (from my can I typically get 150g-160g of aquafaba and 250g of chickpeas), this time it was 155g for me (scale rest of ingredients accordingly to what you have). Unsalted would obviously do better, but salted isn't that much of a dealbreaker (tried), just use more sweetener.

2. 35g Powdered Erythritol (or more, to taste and tolerance)

3. 1g Vanilla extract

4. 0.5g Cream of Tartar

5. 0.2g Xanthan gum

Whisk aquafaba on it's own a little bit until it just starts to foam, add vanilla extract, cream of tartar, sweetener. Whisk until soft peaks, add xanthan gum, continue whisking until stiff peaks. That is all!

Transfer to serving dish (or not) and freeze until desired consistency, which for me is typically in a range of 2-2.5 hours (depending on thickness and the shape it is in). This will be kinda soft serve-ish consistency, except the surface layer part will be hard. Freeze for longer, and it will have a texture of merengue, very cold merengue, I am not a fan of longer freezing times for this, but maybe you will like it? Can always save part and freeze it for longer. This whole ice cream thing without extras is just 43 kcal (from 155g of aquafaba).

Does it taste like chickpeas? No, it tastes like sweetener. If it doesn't, use more sweetener next time!

B. Crunchy Chocolate Chickpeas

Note: quantities provided are for single portion and recipe for my preferred version, but on "making of" pictures you can see me doing more than that and in different ways (and a mix of two on final product as well), I usually do much more than for single portion, since I have a can of chickpeas opened anyway, and use them in other desserts or just as a snack on their own.

Ingredients:

1. 50g of Chickpeas

2. 1g Cocoa Powder

3. 1g Corn Starch

4. 3g Powdered Erythritol

5. 1g Wheat Bran

Combine all the non-chickpea ingredients, toss unwashed (free binder!) chickpeas in that, air fry for 12 minutes at 180C (shake once halfway through), shake again and air fry for around 8-10 more minutes at 165C. Definitely stop if you smell any burning or hear them popping like popcorn! Let them cool to room temperature and then refrigerate, they will crispify once chilled (will be soft while still hot).

Do they taste like canned chickpeas? No, if cooked properly and crunchy, they taste more like nuts in chocolate. Soft ones do taste like chickpeas -> air fry for longer next time and make sure they were chilled before tasting.

C. Chocolate Yogurt Sauce

Note: again, on "making of" picture I am making 5x the amount, I ate the rest later on it's own (refrigerated, not frozen), it is good!

Ingredients:

1. 40g Greek Yogurt

2. 3g Cocoa Powder

3. 2g Liquid Sweetener (to taste, depends on sweetener; can use powdered as well)

4. 0.15g Salt

5. 9g Hot water

6. 0.25g Xanthan gum

Fully dissolve cocoa, salt and sweetener in hot water and let cool to room temperature. Add to yogurt and mix really well. Add xanthan gum and whisk really really well. I used stick blender with whisk (because I had it out after whipping bean water), but it is not really needed. Once done, put in the fridge for at least half an hour, to let xanthan fully hydrate and thicken it.

Oh, and as a bonus: you can also make "ice cream" from this yogurt recipe, but you will have to stir it every 30 minutes after putting in freezer to break ice crystals, and keep repeating every 30 minutes until desired consistency (again around 2-3 hours for me). But this is a different story…

Assembly:

Spread yogurt sauce in thin layer over ice cream about half an hour before serving (then it will be kinda like chocolate consistency, if frozen for longer it will be icy and not good to my taste), add chickpeas on top and put back in the freezer. Alternatively, add both (refrigerated) right before serving. For final touch I sprinkled some powdered erythritol and cinnamon on top.

That is all!