I tried a variety of brands of chickpeas in these tests, and there was a lot of variance in the results, even if the only ingredients listed on the cans were chickpeas and water. For example, it took me half the time to whip up a meringue with aquafaba from cans of chickpeas sold by the brand Westbrae than any other brand. Eden’s chickpeas, which are cooked with kombu, consistently gave me the best results.
I also tried making meringues with aquafaba from chickpeas I prepared myself from dried, and those experiments didn’t work out very well. I found that the ratio of water to chickpeas that I normally use when preparing dried chickpeas yielded a much less viscous aquafaba. Since canned chickpeas are so widely available, and since I typically season the cooking water for dried chickpeas with spices and aromatics that would be distracting in desserts, I recommend sticking with canned aquafaba for the meringue recipes I’ve developed.
While dehydrated aquafaba powder products are now available, I did not test any of them in this set of experiments.
