Chocolate Chip and Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Bites

A friend of mine (hi, Lisa!), posted a picture and recipe on Facebook the other day of a grain-free, gluten-free, but absolutely YUMMY looking chocolate chip cookie alternative.

I was curious. And hungry.

The recipe uses no flour, no eggs, no oil...but it does use a can of chickpeas and a bunch of chocolate chips. Along with honey, peanut butter, baking powder, vanilla....and that's it! I plugged the recipe into my calorie counter, and it was a bit over 100 calories. Not bad, especially when compared to a normal chocolate chip cookie (which has about 150 calories), but I figured I could do better. Specifically, by using the peanut butter substitute, PB2, which cuts about 85% of the calories from traditional peanut butter.

I made a couple of other tweaks as well. I used half regular PB2 and half chocolate PB2, to try to get some more chocolatey flavor. I also used half chocolate chips and half peanut butter chips...mostly because I have an opened bag of peanut butter chips in the freezer and need to use them up.

And they turned out REALLY yummy.

The texture of these is interesting, I am calling them "dough balls" because they didn't set as much as a cookie and had a kind of creamy texture, probably due to the chickpeas. They were definitely cooked all the way through (I actually cooked them almost twice as long as called for), and I loved how soft they were. They didn't fall apart or anything and were browned on the outside. But if you prefer a crunchy cookie treat, you might want to try something else.

One more note, I used one of those "air" baking sheets, which is probably why they took so long to bake. In my experience these types of baking sheets take way longer than traditional rimmed dark baking sheets, so make sure you check on your dough bites after 10 minutes! I would also recommend eating these warm, either fresh from the oven or warmed in the microwave. When the chocolate is melty...mmmm.

As far as I can tell, the recipe originated from the baking blog, Texanerin. Here's my (modified) recipe with the nutritional info!

Chocolate Chip and Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Bites

Prep Time: 8 min
Cook Time: 17 min
Yield: 17 dough bites

1¼ cups canned chickpeas, well-rinsed and patted dry with a paper towel (1 15.5 oz. can)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ cup PB2 (I used half regular, half chocolate)
¼ cup honey
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I replaced some of the chocolate chips with some peanut butter chips)

Preheat your oven to 350°F. 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.

Stir in the chocolate chips. Using a cookie scoop or wet hands, form into 1½" balls. Place onto 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 17 minutes (10-15 if using a traditional cookie sheet).

Calories: 77 per dough bite (based on 17 servings per recipe)
Fat = 2 g
Protein = 3 g
Sugar = 8 g