Since avian flu turned eggs into a luxury item, pastry chef Annie Clemmons has spent countless hours in her Maryland workshop, racking her brains about how to replace them in her recipes. "It won't taste like chickpeas!" she told AFP as she poured aquafaba -- the watery byproduct of the cooked pulses -- into the bowl of her electric mixer. A customer had recently ordered a meringue-based red fruit pavlova, and requested that it be delivered the same day.
Instead of beating egg whites until they are stiff, as in the traditional recipe, Clemmons uses an alternative well known to vegan and egg-intolerant cooks. "It takes a bit longer," she said, adding: "you won't see the difference in colour or taste." And for the custard, she uses cornstarch as a thickener.
"It won't be as creamy," she said, adding a spoonful of cardamom to enhance the flavour. 'Like gold' The increasing number of outbreaks of avian flu on US farms has made eggs an expensive -- and rare -- commodity. And so Clemmons has been looking for ways to replace this "foundational ingredient.
" "They're like gold," she said, showing off the 20 eggs she still has in stock. "Never in a million years did I think it would be a luxury item." She estimates that an egg that used to cost eight cents now costs 45 cents -- more than five times the price.
The 51-year-old set up Chapman's DC -- a pastry home-delivery business -- in 2020, after her hotel and restaurant-sector work dried up due to the Covid-19 pandemic. "I have to thi.