Healthy Chickpea Toll House Style Cookies - Take 2

As you may or may not know, my previous attempt at making healthier chocolate chip cookies were a bit of a fail. I ended up tossing the cookies I had made, it turned out to be the coconut flour that caused the problem. It gave them a sandy/gritty texture that just wasn't pleasant. 

Fast forward to a couple of days ago, I tried again, this time using ground oat flour and almond flour. I haven't tried baking them, yet, it's just been too hot to turn on the oven. On a side note, someday, I hope to set up an outdoor kitchen area on my breezeway so I can bake and cook without heating up the house.

Raw, last 3 LOL

A few nights ago, I made up another batch of "healthy" (or healthier) version of Toll House chocolate chip cookie dough, I haven't tried baking them, yet... if you follow me you'll know that I made this previously with coconut flour and it turned out sandy/gritty feeling, both the raw form and in the baked form. I asked AI about this and it gave me some good suggestions. So last night I got to work making a new batch, this time I used oat flour (I ground my own oats) and finely ground almond flour, everything else was more or less the same. Well they turned out very tasty and the texture was spot on! So far I have only eaten the "raw" dough, it's perfectly safe as it only contains ingredients which can be eaten without cooking. I even gave PB a bite, he was OK with it until he found out what he was actually eating LOL.

Here is the "recipe", these are approximates, I'm mainly guestimating on the almond and oat flour, I added each one until the dough seemed to be the right texture, not too wet, not too dry. I suspect the total amounts of the dry ingredients would change based on how wet the chickpea puree came out, this one came out pretty wet.

Chickpea Toll House chocolate chip cookie dough

1 15.5 oz can chickpeas, drained (I used Goyoa brand)

1.5 cups almond flour

1.5 cups oat flour

1/4 cup maple syrup

3 plump fresh Medjool dates, pitted

1/4 t vanilla extract

dash of Celtic salt

6 oz of milk chocolate chips (Hershey's brand)

First, take 3-4 pitted Medjool dates, pour boiling water over them in a bowl and allow to plump up. Next pulverize your oats until they are powdered. Once your dates are plump, drain off most of the water and puree until smooth (I used a Magic Bullet blender). Drain a can of chickpeas (but save the liquid for other uses!), puree the chickpeas until smooth. Pour this into a large bowl to finish mixing. Add the other wet ingredients and mix. Add the oat flour and almond flour alternately, about 1/2 cup at a time, mix, continue adding and mixing until you get a dough that looks like a regular cookie dough, the more of the oat and almond flour you add, the stiffer the dough will be. I add a few shakes of a good salt (I prefer Celtic sea salt, you use what you have). Next add your chocolate chips, measure with your heart, I had a half of a 12 oz bag so that's what I added. Mix until all the chips are incorporated. Now you can eat the cookie dough with a spoon, or roll into balls and eat, or you can bake them. Store any left over in the refrigerator. I'm not sure just yet if I'm going to try baking mine, if I do I'll probably add a bit of baking powder, or not... I'd bake them at 350 degrees F for about 12-15 minutes.

Here are the approximate nutritional values:

Chickpeas (1 can, 15.5 oz, drained)

Calories: 269

Protein: 14.5g

Fat: 4.3g

Carbohydrates: 45g

Fiber: 12.5g

Vitamins and minerals: Folate, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Zinc

Almond Flour (1.5 cups)

Calories: 960

Protein: 36g

Fat: 84g

Carbohydrates: 36g

Fiber: 12g

Vitamins and minerals: Vitamin E, Magnesium, Iron, Calcium, Potassium

Oat Flour (1.5 cups)

Calories: 612

Protein: 18g

Fat: 9g

Carbohydrates: 102g

Fiber: 12g

Vitamins and minerals: Iron, Magnesium, Zinc, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B5

Maple Syrup (1/4 cup)

Calories: 216

Protein: 0g

Fat: 0g

Carbohydrates: 56g

Fiber: 0g

Vitamins and minerals: Manganese, Zinc, Calcium, Potassium, Iron

Medjool Dates (3, pitted)

Calories: 199

Protein: 1.5g

Fat: 0.3g

Carbohydrates: 53g

Fiber: 5g

Vitamins and minerals: Potassium, Magnesium, Vitamin B6, Iron

Vanilla Extract (1/4 t)

Negligible nutritional value

Celtic Salt (dash)

Negligible nutritional value

Milk Chocolate Chips (6 oz, Hershey's brand)

Calories: 840

Protein: 9g

Fat: 48g

Carbohydrates: 108g

Fiber: 6g

Vitamins and minerals: Calcium, Iron, Magnesium

Now, let's combine these values to get the approximate nutritional values for the entire recipe.

Total Nutritional Values

Calories

Chickpeas: 269

Almond Flour: 960

Oat Flour: 612

Maple Syrup: 216

Medjool Dates: 199

Milk Chocolate Chips: 840

Total Calories: 3096

Protein

Chickpeas: 14.5g

Almond Flour: 36g

Oat Flour: 18g

Medjool Dates: 1.5g

Milk Chocolate Chips: 9g

Total Protein: 79g

Fat

Chickpeas: 4.3g

Almond Flour: 84g

Oat Flour: 9g

Medjool Dates: 0.3g

Milk Chocolate Chips: 48g

Total Fat: 145.6g

Carbohydrates

Chickpeas: 45g

Almond Flour: 36g

Oat Flour: 102g

Maple Syrup: 56g

Medjool Dates: 53g

Milk Chocolate Chips: 108g

Total Carbohydrates: 400g

Fiber

Chickpeas: 12.5g

Almond Flour: 12g

Oat Flour: 12g

Medjool Dates: 5g

Milk Chocolate Chips: 6g

Total Fiber: 47.5g

Vitamins and Minerals (not exhaustive but key ones)

Folate: High from chickpeas

Iron: High from chickpeas, almond flour, oat flour, maple syrup, and chocolate chips

Magnesium: High from chickpeas, almond flour, oat flour, and dates

Phosphorus: High from chickpeas and almond flour

Potassium: High from chickpeas, almond flour, dates, and maple syrup

Zinc: High from chickpeas, almond flour, oat flour, and maple syrup

Vitamin E: High from almond flour

Vitamin B1 (Thiamin): High from oat flour

Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic acid): High from oat flour

Calcium: Moderate from almond flour and milk chocolate chips

Manganese: High from maple syrup

Per Serving (assuming 12 servings)

Calories: ~258

Protein: ~6.6g

Fat: ~12.1g

Carbohydrates: ~33.3g

Fiber: ~4g

All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

Chickpea Cookies and ChatGPT (short version)

Hey everyone, I understand that not everyone wants to read lengthy, wordy posts, so I shortened my previous post about my chickpea Toll House cookies experiment. Enjoy!

Hey everyone! Hope you're doing well! Today, I’m sharing a healthy and tasty post about my journey to eat healthier. I've been an avid label reader since my son Josh was young. Over the years, I’ve realized that many processed foods, even the so-called healthy ones, contain undesirable ingredients.

I'm working on cutting out sugar, especially cookies, which are my weakness. While I typically avoid store-bought cookies, I sometimes buy Mexican wafer cookies for PB, they have less junk. I love dipping cookies in my after-dinner coffee, but I often end up eating half a package!

Thanks to Facebook and other social media videos, I've discovered cooks who use healthy ingredients to recreate unhealthy foods. Inspired, I decided to make Toll House-style chocolate chip cookies with better ingredients. Here's my recipe (more my experiment, no real measurements this time, maybe later):

- **Ingredients:**

  - 1 can of chickpeas (drained and rinsed, save the juice!)

  - Coconut flour

  - 5 pitted dates (softened in boiling water)

  - Maple syrup

  - Celtic salt

  - Coconut oil

  - Aquafaba (chickpea liquid)

  - Baking powder

  - Chocolate chips

- **Instructions:**

  1. Blend drained and rinsed chickpeas into a fine mass.

  2. Pulverize dates with a bit of hot water.

  3. Mix chickpeas, dates, coconut flour, maple syrup, and salt.

  4. Add coconut oil and aquafaba for moisture.

  5. Separate dough for 2 cookies, add baking powder and chocolate chips.

  6. Bake at 350°F for 12-20 minutes.

Initially, the cookies were crumbly. Adding an egg improved the texture. I plan to use oat flour and more eggs next time. I also forgot the vanilla extract. I sought advice from ChatGPT.

ChatGPT suggested the following tips to reduce crumbliness:

1. Increase binding agents (extra egg or aquafaba).

2. Add moisture-retaining ingredients (applesauce or Greek yogurt).

3. Use different flours (almond or oat flour).

4. Add a small amount of starch (cornstarch or tapioca starch).

5. Chill the dough before baking.

6. Adjust temperature (lower) and baking time (longer).

I found that chickpeas make a great base for cookies, providing a healthier alternative to traditional ingredients. Despite my dislike for whole chickpeas, they work wonderfully in this recipe.

Have you tried baking with coconut flour or chickpeas? How did it turn out for you?

Thanks for visiting!

Wretha

Original, more wordy version of this post can be found here:
https://www.wretha.com/2024/06/chickpea-cookies-and-chatgpt.html

All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!