So, I am lucky that I don’t have to worry about being on a Gluten Free diet. I also choose to eat dairy, meat and eggs so I am not vegetarian or vegan. So, it never even occurred to me that you could make chocolate chip cookies without wheat flour, without dairy, or without eggs, but I did just that when I made these yummy Chickpea + Pecan Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. They are Gluten Free, dairy free (no butter, no eggs), white sugar free (do use honey and there are chocolate chips) and vegan. They do contain both nuts and nut butter (pecans, but you can use almonds or cashews as well. They are a bit crumbly and the original recipe called for a much shorter baking time (I upped it from -10 minutes to 14-16), but they do taste great and I don’t miss the things that it doesn’t have. The pecans are nice too. This recipe only makes a small batch (about 20 cookies) so you can test them out. Recipe can be doubled easily.
Chickpea + Pecan Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
So you know how sometimes really crappy weather makes you want to hunker down and hibernate just a little while? Well, it’s April and New England is getting a Nor’Easter (which actually doesn’t mean snow necessarily, just wind direction, but the precipitation is still supposed to be yucky). So the bad weather got me thinking of wanting to be in the tropics, which got me thinking of citrus fruits, so I dug through my bag of tricks and came up with a jar of Guava Jam. Never had a guava? Well, it tastes a lot like oranges and peaches mixed together. Add in some macadamia nuts and voila, tropical inspiration to get over the Spring Stormy blues.
Continuing my sourdough adventures…. I had to give Alice some refreshment, and I really hate to through away perfectly good starter, I decided to make another style of breakfast bread (I already make a terrific Cranberry Walnut Bread!): Müsli Sourdough Breakfast Bread. Toasted Granola and the ever-controversial raisins are the mix-ins this time with some sweet, dark avocado blossom honey. It’s still a little dense, but incredibly moist and phenomenal flavor. I can definitely see this one going into the rotation of breakfast breads.
Some of you may have heard of the slightly strange tradition of naming one’s Sourdough Starter (aka Mother). I have named mine Alice. Alice in Wondoughland, in fact. I’ll just put that in as a teaser as there will be more on Alice as time goes on. Yes, I named a jar of goo after a fictional character. Trust me, I am still sane, even through the pandemic. Or at least mostly as bonkers as I was at the beginning.
Anyway, Alice and her Adventures in Wondoughland produced this lovely Seeded Multigrain Sourdough Loaf. It is very similar to my yeasted multigrain loaf. It turned out positively delicious. I still need to work on the texture a bit, but the flavor was spot on.
PS: Alice has her own FB Page (@AliceInWondoughland) and Instagram (@aliceinwondoughland). I just started them so there isn’t anything up there yet, but feel free to like/follow.
Ending my Easter baking this year with a little Cardamom Carrot Cake with Pecans and Zante Currants. I love cardamom — my favorite spice — and a nice, healthy carrot cake to balance out all the chocolate Easter Bunnies. I didn’t make the sugar-decorations just bought them; being lazy), but they are a cute addition, don’t you think?