Fruit & Cream Meringue Layer Cake

Phoebe Thorburn -

So vegan meringues do exist. They are a thing, and all because of the really nifty substance which is Aquafaba, which I'm sure you already know about because it's been all about the place since it popped up on the scene a few years back. So Aquafaba (which is just the water from a can of chickpeas) does wondrous things, although I have found it to do meringue better than pavlova over the years. Simply because my pavlova's have kinda "sweat-ed" after a couple of hours which as you can imagine was been oh-so-attractive!!

Anyhoo - this recipe is really impressive, pretty bloody easy and super gooood. So let me show ya' how I did it. FYI - aquafaba is kinda technical so I used another's recipe, and made it my own here.

Ingredients

  • Make the meringue from Pickle's and Honey's Blog however, add the vinegar in with the aquafaba when you first whip it in the bowl - as this way it will fluff up better. Cook it into two 8inch round merangues with higher sides then middles. Make sure your oven is NOT on fan-forced also. The slow setting (or setting with two bars as the icon) is what you want.
  • 500g COYO natural yoghurt (or other whippable coconut yoghurt)
  • 2 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • handful of rasperries
    Fruit to top with - cut up strawberries & nectaries, cherries, rasperries, passionfruit, mango and maybe even some fresh mint. Ooo la la!

Method

  1. With an electic mixer/beater, whip the COYO yoghurt until stiff peaks form (should only take a minute or two). Add in the maple syrup and vanilla & beat to combine. Add in a handful of fresh raspberries if you like a pink "cream", or take out half and then do this step to the remaining COYO-whip to get a two-tone effect in your "cake". However you decide to do it, chill until ready to assemble.
  2. Once your two meringue disks that you have made have cooled to room temperature, take out your whipped coconut yoghurt and prep all your fruit. You want to assemble it within 30 minutes to an hour of serving for optimum results.
  3. Assemble it so you start with a meringue disk, then top with half the yoghurt (spread out to the sides), then half the fruit, a few small dollops of yoghurt, then the other meringue, remaining yoghurt and remaining fruit. Decorate to your liking and then voila! Store in the fridge until ready to serve, and then after that if there is some left over. Although as mentioned, best eaten fresh. Enjoy!