Pinterest Review: Grain-free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Bites

My version of the PB & Chocolate Chip Cookie

I pinned this recipe from Texanerin Baking a couple of months ago and have been meaning to try it. It's been floating around Pinterest for awhile. Recently I saw a couple of posts on Facebook saying that this recipe is a "must save" so I thought I had better try it. I definitely needed to see what the hype was about.

OK. These cute little bites are pretty darn good and REALLY easy to make. If you are scared of making cookies out of chickpeas - get over it. The cookie dough actually taste nearly the same as flour peanut butter cookie dough. And as you can see from my photos of my cookies above, they are gooey! Now, I did not make any serious changes. I used a whole can 15 oz. can of chickpeas, drained and patted dry. It measured out to 1-1/2 cups and I found that I needed 12 minutes to bake them instead of 10. Other than those 2 things, I followed the recipe.

If you are going gluten free and/or dairy free - these cookies are great. I'm not going to pretend that once baked they taste as good as a flour, butter, sugar, regular old peanut butter cookie...but they are surprisingly tasty. But don't take my word for it - try it yourself! The recipe is below or you can go to
www.texanerin.com

Ingredients

• 1¼ cups canned chickpeas, well-rinsed and patted dry with a paper towel
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ½ cup + 2 tablespoons (165 grams) natural peanut butter, SunButter Natural or almond butter (I used Trader Joe's Creamy, Salted Natural Peanut Butter)
• ¼ cup (80 grams) honey (I used Trader Joe's Organic Raw Honey)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• a pinch of salt if your peanut butter doesn't have salt in it
• ½ cup (90 grams) chocolate chips (use vegan chocolate chips, if needed)

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F / 175°C. Combine all the ingredients, except for the chocolate chips, in a food processor and process until very smooth. Make sure to scrape the sides and the top to get the little chunks of chickpeas and process again until they're combined.
2. Put in the chocolate chips and stir it if you can, or pulse it once or twice. The mixture will be very thick and sticky.
3. With wet hands, form into 1½" balls. Place onto a Silpat or a piece of parchment paper. If you want them to look more like normal cookies, press down slightly on the balls. They don't do much rising. Bake for about 10 minutes.