Chocolate Chunk and Almond Butter Cookies [with a healthy twist – dairy and gluten free]

I know it is only mid November, but is anyone else starting to get into the holiday baking spirit? Last night [a non convicted] Martha Stewart took over my body and I spent the evening baking my  famous ginger cookies

Big Soft Ginger Cookies

for my favourite people – and who am I kidding, I made some treats for myself too! The recipe I’m going to share with you has a secret ingredient that makes them healthy and filling. I know it is going to sound a bit strange but just trust me on this one – I’m seriously becoming the queen of “weird” recipes among my friends. Everyone I have shared these cookies with went back for seconds – that is how delish they are – especially right out of the oven when the chocolate is gooey, like this:

Ooey Gooey Chocolate!!!

Okay, so here is the secret – chickpeas [SAY WHAT?!]. Seriously. The base of the cookie is made from chickpeas. Enough anticipation, here is the recipe!

Almond Butter, Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Recipe adapted from: Texanerin Baking

What you need:

Only 7 ingredients!

 

• 1 can of chickpeas, rinsed and patted dry with paper towel
• 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons of natural almond butter (I used raw)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 teaspoon baking powder (look for a gluten free brand if necessary)
• a pinch of salt
• 80g of dark chocolate (I used a full chocolate bar minus 2 big squares – you can use more or less depending on how chocolatey you like your cookies)

 

What to do:

What a mess!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper [this will save you a lot of clean up]. Add all of your ingredients (except for the chocolate) into a high powered food processor and blend until smooth and creamy. Even though this mixture doesn’t have any egg and is safe to eat raw I don’t recommend doing so. The batter uncooked tastes pretty brutal – they will get better though, save yourself the disappointment and wait a few more minutes to taste your creation!

Next you’ll have to smash the chocolate into smaller pieces. I use the term “smash” because I literally take a hard spatula and hit the chocolate until it breaks into smaller chunks – I should have taken a video, it is beyond ridiculous, but it is a great way to let out some aggression and it is lots of fun! Once the chocolate is broken into pieces add it to the food processor and pulse quickly once or twice just to mix it in.

Adding the “smashed” chocolate pieces!

You should end up with a mixture that is sticky and a bit slimy [awful way to describe cookies] so you’ll want to use a spoon to transfer the batter into 12 cookies on your lined cookie sheet. These cookies don’t change much in size at all when baked so keep that in mind. I press down on the ball just a bit so they aren’t as puffy. It should look something like this:

Uncooked Almond Butter, Chocolate Chunk, Chickpea Cookies.

Bake for 10 minutes – or a bit longer if you want a bit of crunch, these cookies are very chewy.

Baked Cookies.

They look pretty much the same except you can see the melted chocolate chunks inside and the browned edges! Wait about 5 minutes [if you have any self-control] and dig in while they are still warm!

You can’t even tell that these are healthy cookies, they are so good – this is the 4th batch I’ve made in the past three weeks.

And for your friends and family that are sick of your healthy treats – make them some ginger cookies, they’ll be happy – and that will keep them away from your healthy but delicious desserts [insert evil laugh here]!

Big Soft Ginger Cookies! You can find the recipe on the blog.

Happy Baking!!!

 

Protein Peanut Butter Cup Recipe

I’m still here – not to worry! I have been really busy lately, planning for an upcoming trip of a lifetime. It seems like as soon as I get busy my blog suffers. I am sorry for that!

Anyways, over the past two weeks –  when I have not been planning my trip – I have been working my butt off at the gym. I have been following a new strength training routine and am really excited about the results. With this being said I am trying to work on improving my diet to get optimal results – which means a new recipe!

Through research [blogs, forums, websites, etc] I have been learning about different supplements to enhance my work outs. One supplement in particular has peaked my interest –  Casein. Casein is a protein commonly found in milk that is hydrophobic [not very soluble in water] which means that it forms a gel or clot in your stomach that will slowly release amino acids. Now, I am not chemist or nutritionist, but from my research casein is ideal to have before bed as it slowly releases the protein into your system and keeps your metabolism running. Another positive for me is that casein protein powders do not impact my lactose intolerance.

Enough [pseudo] science… here is the recipe for Protein Peanut Butter Cups, which you can eat any time but I like to have mine as dessert! This is the easiest recipe ever… I promise.

Protein Peanut Butter Cups

Image from: http://leanbodieshf.com/?p=2566

Ingredients

4 scoops of Allmax Chocolate Casein FX (you can use another chocolate protein powder if you don’t care about the casein)

4 tbsp of Raw Almond Butter ( I didn’t have peanut butter on hand, so I used almond but you can use any nut butter)

water

What to do:

1. Mix 4 scoops of Casein FX with about 3 – 3 1/2 cups of water. You want it to be liquid enough that you can pour it, but not too running.

2. Mix almond butter with water to make it a bit more running. I honestly have no idea how much water I used, probably 3 or 4 tbsp.

3. Line a muffin tin with muffin liners ( I made 12 with this recipe).

4. Using the Casein FX mixture fill the muffin liners 1/4 full.

5. Add the almond butter on top of the Casein FX. Split it evenly between the 12.

6. Use the rest of the Casein FX to cover the almond butter.

7. Put in the freezer.

They should look like oversized Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Once the peanut butter cups have frozen they are ready to be eaten! I removed mine from the muffin tin and stored them in a plastic bag in the freezer [I would have used a container but I ran out]. Do not store them in the fridge or leave them out for too long because they will melt and they will be messy.

I like having something sweet after dinner and this is fairly healthy and satisfies my sweet tooth. Just make sure you have a napkin on hand because they do get pretty messy.

Here is the nutritional information:

Calories: 68

Carbs: 2

Fat: 3

Protein: 9