food to glow

4A slightly sweet, vegan chocolate mousse made with aquafaba and protein-packed peanut butter powder. Easy, light and perfect for a family or special occasion dessert. Top with crushed salted peanuts or pretzels for a flavour and texture contrast.

I bet you thought I had disappeared off the blogosphere. Nope, I’ve just been in Japan! For the second year in succession, I have travelled with Andrew for work and pleasure to one of my favourite destinations.If you have never been to Japan, I urge you to consider it. For those of you who have been, you know exactly why I say this. From the moment you land you are surrounded by the unique contrasts of incredibly sophisticated technology and deep cultural traditions. Not just temples and shrines shadowed by skyscrapers, but plugged-in teens, bowing to shopkeepers; bullet trains shooting past stacks of hand-harvested rice; vending machines selling everything (and sited everywhere) next to centuries-old tea houses.

I adored every single second – even the rainy ones, of which there were quite a few. I will come back here and share our colour and food-filled trip once I’ve gone through all of my snaps (still on my phone): images, our itinerary, offbeat surprises (a cat festival!), super special moments (sunrise over Mt Fuji), as well as tips and links. I hope you look out for it. 🙂

But for now, I wanted to pop into your inbox with this simply fab little recipe that is not only incredibly easy to make but a proper healthy indulgence. I love it with a peppering of crushed, salted peanuts but I’ve seen other “proper” mousses with broken pretzels, which I must try next time.

I’ve made this pudding/dessert vegan as I always have aquafaba (chickpea liquid) stashed in my freezer, which whips up just like egg whites or double cream. And doesn’t taste at all beany, which is pretty incredible. But this idea is easily adapted to any non-vegan recipe you might already make and love.

The special ingredient in this chocolate mousse is peanut powder. If you haven’t used this odd sounding product, do look out for it at your supermarket. It is naturally lower fat, very peanutty, and is excellent to add to desserts, smoothies, shakes and bread where either the texture or extra oil/volume is unwanted. I would imagine that there are a number of people who don’t like peanut butter because of the texture rather than taste, so this is a good solution. The downside is that removing the fat also removes much of the nutrition so I wouldn’t use it as a health product as such. But I’m assuming that you are getting plenty of healthy fats and vitamin E in your diet anyway. As far as how to get this funky little product, I bought PB Fit brand from Sainsburys, but there are quite a few brands and stockists. There are now also organic versions, which I will look out for next time I buy some.

Another use for your peanut powder: One of my favourite uses for peanut powder is something highly indulgent: stovetop-popped popcorn (never eat microwave stuff – nasty chemicals in the bag lining) tossed with a little butter, maple syrup, sea salt and peanut powder. Trust me, it’s awesome. It’s also great for sauces, soups, marinades and probably loads more things.

This recipe is based on my original aquafaba chocolate mousse from a couple of years ago, when I first heard of this way of using chickpea brine, and before it broke in the media. It is still my basic recipe and has been tried by many people with great results.

Some tips: Don’t be alarmed if once the chickpea liquid makes soft peaks it returns to liquid when the melted and slightly cooled chocolate is added. Once you pour it into your cups to set in the refrigerator it sorts itself out.

The second tip is to use room temperature chickpea liquid, either good quality, no-salt-added tinned chickpeas for your liquid (I use ones from Waitrose), or homemade beans that sit overnight in their liquid so that it thickens up. One tin’s worth is the amount needed for this recipe. Simply drain the chickpeas over a bowl and use an electric whisk/beaters to create a mass of white fluff in about 4-5 minutes. Honestly, it’s the closest thing to magic I’ve seen in a long time. And a great kitchen project for the British half-term holidays.I pinky swear that this chocolate mousse will be at least as good as the best chocolate mousse you’ve had, if not better – light, creamy-textured, chocolatey and utterly irresistible. All courtesy of two rather weird ingredients. 🙂

RIPE FOR PINNING!