Why Smart Cookie Dough?
Craving some indulgent cookie dough?
Smart Cookie Dough is my spin-off of a healthy cookie dough recipe I saw on Pinterest consisting of chickpeas, peanut butter, maple syrup, and chocolate chips. To make this recipe accessible to more people, I attempted subsituting the peanut butter with bananas, and then greek yogurt, both of which failed. Look at my advice on Point by Point testing to see how I overcame this!
This is a huge improvement from my savory yogurt recipe that I had used for a nutrition workshop at my local senior center. I was able to present/propose this new recipe after reflecting on my workshop. I learned we should be gradually introducing healthy foods into our diet, rather than suddenly. So, if this seems like a lot of maple syrup, maybe it is! However, as you make this recipe multiple times, you may choose to add less and less. Check out my reflection here!
Ingredients:
2 Cups of oats or oat flour
1 Cup of boiled chickpeas or 1 can of chickpeas
1 Cup of oat milk
1/4 cup of maple syrup
1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
3/4 cup of semi-sweet dark chocolate chips
Coconut sugar or brown sugar (optional)
THE STEPS
First, ingredient prep:
Oats: If you don't have oat flour, you can grind 2 cups of oats in a food processor until fine. You can also sift through it to help improve the texture of the dough.
Chickpeas: I tried both canned chickpeas and boiled chickpeas in my recipe, and found that using canned chickpeas makes it harder to hide the beany taste in the cookie dough. Canned chickpeas will have a more beany taste, while boiled chickpeas will have a more nutty taste.
Grind your chickpeas in a food processor with 1/4 cup of maple syrup. It's easier to mix the maple syrup in now then later when the mixture has become a firmer dough.
Now, putting it all together.
Dry ingredients:
Mix together the chick peas & maple syrup with the oats in a large bowl
Mixing dry & wet ingredients:
Add oat milk to the mix
Add vanilla extract
The best part:
Toss in the semi-sweet dark chocolate
Sprinkle some coconut sugar or brown sugar on top for an extra crunch and just to be whimsical! Yay!
Aaand that's it!