Every single Friday I breathe a sigh of relief lately. I survived! Training. College tours. Dogs. Teenage daughters. Politics. Life in general. I’ll admit lately it’s been life is just hard. I managed two nights that were in excess of 10 hours of sleep. My body is showing the fatigue lately and I’m embracing it.
I was up for a nice little easy treat that was healthy for for my girls. My husband, as I’ve shared, is allergic to chocolate – still cannot imagine that curse. But these little cookie bars I sliced into bite-sized pieces. They are packed with chickpeas and almond butter so YES on the protein!! These are a totally tricky food that you can smile about as your kids gobble them down. Perfect for after school snacking on in their lunches for school. Plus they have a great soft inner texture like a gooey cookie. My daughter even warmed them and put pieces in her nice cream – points for creativity!
Ingredients:
1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed well
1/2 cup of almond butter (I used vanilla Justin’s)
1/3 cup of maple syrup
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup of vegan chocolate chips or dark chocolate shaved
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and spray your loaf pan with coconut oil. Set that aside while the oven preheats and the dough comes together. Into your food processor add your chickpeas, almond butter, syrup, extract, salt, soda and powder. Pulse several times until smooth and creamy. Add some of your chips into the mixture, reserving some to top the final product before baking and pulse a few times. Spoon your batter into your prepared pan and then sprinkle the top with the remaining chocolate chips. You can add more or less as you prefer. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until the edges are golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. It may require more time depending on your oven temperature. Remove and let cool at least 20 minutes to set up.
Prior to baking…
Once removed from the oven & impatiently waiting for it to cool 🙂
I removed the cookie bars (sliding out of my bread pan) onto a cutting board and sliced as your prefer. I sliced and then halved those for bite-sized pieces. Serve and enjoy!
Another training week in the books. Also my second time of reaching a 70+ mile week, with today marking my highest mileage even. I reached 70.7 miles happily. Funny how Sunday brings that big ol’ 0 mile total again.
Here’s my recap:
Sunday: 13.2 outdoor hilly trail miles
Monday: 11 progressive treadmill miles
Tuesday: 13 outdoor miles
Wednesday: Rest day.
Thursday: 20.4 outdoor miles at 3:45a.
Friday: 13.1 outdoor miles
That’s it from here kids. Happy weekend!! You can find me curled up in my bed till Sunday 😉 LOL
— Knead to Cook
Needing a recipe for a party this weekend and have two cans of chickpeas in my pantry. Perfect timing, my friend!! This reminds me of your PB & Choc Chip hummus I shared on my blog today. Rest up. You deserve it.
Chelsy, thank you my sweet friend! I’m so blessed you’re in my life. Always make me smile 🙂 oxox
Oh my yes, Robin, take a restful Sunday for yourself.
Think this will work with beaters since I do not have a processor?
Hubby saw the pics and is on board for this recipe…shhh, he doesn’t know about the main ingredient, we’ll see how it goes 😀
Do you have a high power blender?
I’ve made chick pea chocolate chip cookies before – I’ll have to try this! Like today!!
I had something similar in a restaurant and have been searching for a recipe. These look amazing. Can you tell me what size pan I bake them in? Thank you!
Hi Elizabeth, I made these in a loaf pan and they worked nicely. Hope this helps! ox
Can I make these with peanut butter in place of almond?
YES!!! I bet it will be quite tasty! ox