It's still hard for me to look at this picture and remember that it's something healthy for me. My brain has been trained to see what looks like sweet gooey confections and automatically register the sugar before it even touches my tongue. But then I remember that this cookie dough that you can eat by the spoon and not feel guilty about is VEGAN! DAIRY FREE! REFINED SUGAR FREE! GRAIN FREE!
And better yet..is filled with protein, free of allergens, and is a REAL fat bomb(with healthy fats, not those ridiculous fat bombs you see posted for Keto diets containing crazy amounts of garbage and bad fats. Sure, the principle used correctly will help to temporarily lose weight...but what's it doing to your whole body health? Okay, I'll get off my soap box on that...for now)
Now you can eat the cookie dough from the bowl and not worry about salmonella from raw egg, because I'm pretty sure my kids are not the only kids who make cookie dough while NEVER INTENDING to bake cookies with it!
The base of the recipes is nutbutter and chickpeas!! The best texture comes from removing the skins first, so I would highly recommend taking the few minutes it will take to remove them. Simply drain, rinse with water, drain again, and pour them out onto a towel. Rub them with another towel, and many of the skins just fall off. They also easily slip out of their skins between your fingertips. The other bonus to removing the skins is that many nuts, beans, and lentils have a protective skin that also contain enzyme-inhibitors so that they don't break down before they're ready. These can wreak havoc on digestion, however.
The recipe is simply tossed into a ninja, blender, or food processor and it processes like a playdough type dough that balls up when it's done.
Vegan Chickpea Cookie Dough to Eat By the Spoon
1 can chickpeas, drained and skins removed
1/2 cup sunbutter (we use sunbutter but you can experiment with peanut butter, cashew butter, almond butter, macadamia nut butter...some are sweeter tasting than others and as this is not naturally a real sweet dough, you might want to play around)
3 Tablespoons coconut sugar
1/4 cup agave (same goes for the sweeteners. This is what I like, but I'm not a big sugar eater anyway. If you're new to reducing and altering sugars, you might want to experiment. Xylitol will be more the taste of regular white sugar, but it's also granular like sugar and may not blend well. Maple syrup, honey, stevia are all options that are taste bud specific, so give yourself the chef's creative opportunity of coming up what's good for you! In any of them, you will most likely have to up the quantity, and gradually reduce it over time as you get better and better at reducing sugar in your whole diet and your taste buds change. The chia seeds will help to absorb the liquid, so if you are going to increase to make it sweeter try this: Up the chia to 2 Tablespoons, up the agave to 1/2 cup. Mix together and set in a separate small bowl and allow to sit for 5 minutes before adding to the rest of the ingredients. This will give the chia a chance to absorb the liquid so that the texture stays the same.)
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 Tablespoon chia seeds, ground
1/2 cup chocolate or carob chips
Blend all together until it balls up. Then add the chocolate or carob chips last. Since it's like a playdough, I sprinkle the chips on a plate and press or kneed the cookie dough into them.
Now you can store it in the fridge(if it lasts that long) and eat it spoonful by spoonful. Or you can ball it up and keep them in the freezer.
