I'm still experimenting with various "healthy" and low-calorie recipes. I was still hungry after dinner tonight and wanted a treat, but I didn't quite have enough Points left for a slice of apple-cinnamon bread. (And I knew that I wouldn't be satisfied with half a slice.) So I went in search of ideas for something tasty I could make for not too many Points.

I'd seen a few variants of chickpea cookie dough kicking around the Internet, so I figured I'd give one of those a go. The recipe author claimed that the dough tasted "INCREDIBLE" and that you couldn't taste the beans at all. She said that she used to bring chickpea-based cookies and treats into work all the time and no one could ever guess what her "secret ingredient" was.¹

I made this according to the recipe. It was... not good. It was not sweet. It was not peanut butter-y. And it did, in fact, taste of beans.

After adding more sweetener and more peanut butter it was passable. Still not great, but at least okay. I think with some more adjustments it might be possible to make this dough actually good, but it's definitely not there yet. Below are my, as yet untested, suggestions for what to do next time.

Chickpea Cookie Dough

Adapted from Well Plated

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 c. cooked chickpeas or white kidney beans
• 1 medium banana
• 6 Tbsp. maple syrup (or a "no-sugar added" pancake syrup)
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 3/4 c. peanut butter powder² (de-fatted peanut flour)
• 20-25g oat flour
• 65g dark chocolate, chopped

Directions

1. Rinse chickpeas (or beans) very well and place them in a blender along with the banana, syrup, vanilla, baking powder, and cinnamon.
2. Purée until smooth.
3. Pour mixture out into a bowl and stir in peanut flour and enough oat flour the make a dough of your preferred consistency.
4. Stir in chocolate chips.

---

¹ I would just like to point out, that not being able to guess the secret ingredient does not necessarily mean they were good, just that the ingredients were unexpected. ^Back
2 I may revisit using peanut butter either instead of or as well as the peanut flour, but I'm going to try it this way for now and see how it goes. I'd love to just use all peanut butter, but I don't think I'd have the Points budget for it. ^Back