This recipe is bananas. I found the reference to said recipe on Bonappetit.com some time ago, and it got stuck in my head. Truthfully, I’m not one for this type of thing. Yeah, I wanna lose some weight, but I’m not going to look for a crazy modification of something as classic and amazing as raw cookie dough. The reason the recipe stayed with me is because it’s made out of beans. Yes, beans! And the blogger claimed that the final product is just about indistinguishable from the real thing. Well, something as absurd as fake cookie dough made out of beans had my interest and I needed to get to the bottom of whether it was good or not.
To my great surprise, it’s good. Damn good. Not exactly the real thing, but I was certainly shocked. Actually, when I first made it I thought it was a total failure. I used garbanzo beans, and the dough smelled like such. You can’t trick yourself into thinking you’re eating cookie dough if it smells like beans, you know. Plus, it was loose and liquidy, and off in general. But after a full night in the fridge, it completely transformed. The aroma went away, and what was left was creamy and satisfying. We polished it off in about three days, and I’m still shaking my head at how the blogger, Chocolate Covered Katie, came up with a recipe as crazy as this. Her whole blog is about healthy desserts, and with the success of this first recipe, I think I might have to try some of her other wacky concoctions.
One variation I did make on the recipe might seem a little over the top though. Deb of Smitten Kitchen just posted a recipe on her blog for the most “ethereally smooth hummus” ever. Her secret is de-skinning the garbanzo beans. Read about it and how to do it here. She says this is the way to counteract the potential grittiness of processed garbanzos, and we’ve all had bad, gritty hummus! But us Austinites really don’t have that problem since Grandma’s Hummus is the best hummus in the universe!
I digress. So, I de-skinned the beans before I put all the ingredients in my mini food processor. It took me and extra 20 or 30 minutes, and I can’t say if it made a difference as this is the first time I made this recipe, but chime in in the comments if you have any thoughts! Have a healthy, happy, sweet MLK day everyone!
Healthy Vegan Gluten-Free Cookie Dough (just slightly adapted from Chocolate Covered Katie)
- 1 can garbanzo beans, stained, rinsed thoroughly, and de-skinned if you choose
- 1/2 cup old fashioned oats
- 1/8 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1 1/2 tablespoons refined coconut oil
- a little over 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
- a little over 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
- 5 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1/3 cup chocolate chips
Add all ingredients, minus the chips, to a food processor (she says it will not work as well in a standard blender) and blend until very smooth. This can take about 5-6 minutes. Keep blending! Once it’s very smooth transfer to a bowl and stir in chocolate chips. Refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight.
Makes about 2 cups
* Chocolate Covered Katie suggests that you could eat the entire bowl of cookie dough, but even though this has healthier ingredients, it’s still not low calorie. The whole recipe has over 1200 calories. If you do want to eat the whole bowl and are okay with artificial sweeteners (which I am not), then you can go that route. She has substitution information on her site.
Could you actually bake this or is it strictly a spoon and eat kinda thing? Interesting….
Heather, I made it to consume raw and by the spoonful, but yes you can bake it. Chocolate Covered Katie baked it as a deep dish cookie pie. Here is the link to the baked recipe: http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2011/05/31/deep-dish-cookie-pie/. Let me know if you try it out!