Chickpea loves peanut butter and chocolate (cookies!)

When I cook, I usually don't make small portions. The same apparently applies to cooking chickpeas. I needed some for the sweet potato falafels and choc chip cookies, so I decided to cook enough to serve a small family. Which meant I had to come up with more ways to use them. Wait, did someone say "more cookies"?

I think I did. And this is what I made. I just bought some lovely Urtekram organic peanut butter, so these babies pack a really nutty punch. Which doesn't mean that they cannot be eaten by the handful. They can. And should.

My mom's poor hand mixer almost died a slow and painful death when trying to deal with the sticky dough, so my cookies still have some chunks of chickpeas in them. I recommend using a powerful food processor and/or thinning out the batter a little with water etc. These won't be as crunchy as the choc chip cookies I posted about before, but they're still pretty damn yummy!

Chickpeas meet peanut butter and chocolate and fall in love

makes 16 cookies

(original recipe here)

1 can / 3 dl cooked chickpeas

1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter

3 tbsp raw cacao powder

1/3 cup maple syrup

1 tbsp vanilla powder

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Preheat your oven to 180ºC and line a baking tray with parchment paper.

Wash the chickpeas well and place all ingredients into a food processor. Blend for a minute, until ingredients are well combined and the dough is smooth and creamy.

Using a spoon, scoop the biscuits into balls and place onto the baking tray. Then press the biscuits down with your hands so they're fairly flat. Bake for 20-25 mins. Enjoy!

Chickpea choc chip cookies

I think you were promised a sweet treat. Well, wait no longer, my sweet-toothed little munchkins. Here's something for you that's sweet and good for you at the same time!

Chick peas (or garbanzo beans) are one of my favourite legume sorts. You can roast them, mush them, mangle them or do whatever, and they still don't complain and taste delish. You can apparently also magic sweet treats out of them, like this recipe proves. Verily amazing!

My version tasted quite orangey, since I used an orange dark chocolate. I imagine these would be equally good with a plain one. Or a mint one? Yum!

And yeah, they are vegan. Not that they need to be, for my kitchen, but hey, if that's the way you roll, then these are complete good for you, too! Inspiration this time was the lovely Detoxinista. Hey, already in English! Whaddayaknow. Less translation needed.

Chickpea chocolate chip cookies

(original recipe here)

makes 16 cookies

1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas

1/2 cup gluten free oat flour

3/4 cup coconut sugar

3 tbsp melted coconut oil

1 tbsp vanilla extract (or vanilla powder)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

3/4 cup dark chocolate chips

*Note: You can make your own flour by simply grinding gluten-free rolled oats in a food processor or coffee grinder until a fine flour is created. 

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Process the chickpeas, coconut oil and vanilla in a food processor until relatively smooth. You can also use a stand mixer. Add in the coconut sugar, flour, salt, baking soda and vinegar and blend or mix until until a smooth batter is formed. Or not so smooth, if you're using a rather low-power stand mixer like me. You might need to add more oil in that case. I did.

Add in the chocolate chips and pulse/mix briefly. Drop the dough by heaping tablespoons onto a lined baking sheet and use wet fingers to gently flatten the cookies (they won’t spread on their own.) Bake until the tops begin to crack and the edges are dry to the touch, about 18 to 20 minutes. Cool completely (or as long as you can wait) on a rack before serving.