Chocolate Chip Cookies - Gluten Free and Dairy Free
A recent cookery project left me with just over 6kg of chickpea flour and I hadn't really thought much about how to use it before this week. It's been one of those unspoken ingredients lurking in the storage cupboards, but it's taking up too much space and has to serve some sort of culinary purpose again!
Chickpea flour has quite a strong smell and taste to it, it's incredibly savoury if you haven't cooked with it before. We've used the flour in our Besan Cheela recipes and in the past I've made Socca with it, a delicious flatbread from Nice, but I've never baked with it, turning it into something sweet.
A lot of research this week and browsing on Pinterest inspired me that perhaps this chickpea flour can be put to a tasty purpose and transformed into a little treat.
Cookies are a very quick and simple bake to put together, a happy starting point for the testing here at No 12. Who can resist a freshly baked cookie, especially a chocolate chip, fresh from the oven?! The house fills with the aromas of baking and those warm melting chunks of chocolate are incredibly inviting even for the most strong willed person!
Recipes that I write about here at No 12 need to be full of flavour, but also using ingredients that families can readily access and have a method that children and parents can work through together or with little help from the grown ups.
The team are all believers that little hands make excellent meals so I hope that these recipes can be tested by our Junior Cooks and enjoyed by all.
Chickpea flour can be found in most supermarkets these days. It's also called Gram Flour or Besan if you're looking at the shelves wondering where it's hiding. Try looking in the world food section where it's commonly located.
Mixing up the batter, don't be put off by the savoury smells. This isn't one of those cookie doughs that you want to eat raw, but trust me and the taste testers, it bakes into a delicious flavour with a wonderful soft texture.
I used dark chocolate in this recipe to make the cookie dairy free but if prefer milk chocolate and dairy was ok for your cookie monsters, then feel free to swap the chocolate chunks to your preference. I have adapted this recipe from several others that I came across in my research, I hope you like them as much as we have at No 12!
Chickpea Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes about 14 cookies
Ingredients:
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted and cooled
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 1/2 cups chickpea flour
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
small pinch of salt
80g dark chocolate chunks or chocolate chips
Coarse sea salt, for sprinkling on top before baking if you like
Method:
Preheat oven to 170C (ours is a fan oven) and get your baking trays ready. Line them with baking paper and set to one side.
In a large mixing bowl, measure out and add your dry ingredients, the chickpea flour, caster sugar, bicarbonate of soda, chocolate chunks and the pinch of salt. Mix with a fork to ensure it's all throughly mixed through.
In a second bowl, combine the coconut oil and vegetable oil, make sure the coconut oil isn't too warm, but adding the vegetable oil to this should make it an ok temperature to carry on with. Add the vanilla bean paste to the oil and crack in the eggs. Beat to combine and make a smooth batter.
Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients and stir well to combine.
Use a desert spoon to scoop out the cookie mixture and form into little balls to place on the baking trays. I found that having wet hands whilst doing this helped as the mixture is a little sticky.
Using your fingers, press the balls of cookie dough down lightly to flatten. Don't make them too flat. Sprinkle with sea salt before putting in the oven if that's your thing.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until edges are slightly golden brown. Allow cookies to cool on the baking trays for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.
Enjoy these cookies freshly baked on the day, or store in an air tight tin or jar until they are eaten by your cookie monsters!