Cooking By Laptop

You’d be hard pressed to find a bigger fan of the incredibly versatile chickpea than me, but I gotta tell ya; this one surprised even me.

I use chickpeas in all kinds of things. There is, of course, hummus, and soups, stews, I’ve even made mylk out of them, and let’s not forget that entire book I wrote about chickpea juice.

But I have seldom used them for sweet applications (other than the aforementioned aquafaba). When I’m cooking with actual chickpeas, it is for savoury applications 99% of the time.

So, when I started reading about dessert hummus and edible cookie dough and edible cake batter on the magical interwebs, I was intrigued.

First of all, if you are making vegan cake batter or cookie dough, you can eat it raw, anyway because it doesn’t have any eggs. But this–this is something completely different.

The base is made from chickpeas, yes, but the texture… is so NOT chickpeas. It’s really simple, too: just a few ingredients, wazz it up in the blender, and you’re in business.

I have been enjoying this as a dip with apples, but it would be great with any kind of fruit, cookies, even pretzels for a sweet/savoury combo.

I’m pretty sure kids would be into this, too. In fact, I have it on good authority that they are.

Chocolate Dessert Hummus

Ingredients:

• 1 can of chickpeas, drained (reserve the aquafaba for something yummy)
• 2 tbsp good quality cocoa powder
• 2 tbsp maple syurp
• 1 tbsp tahini (if you don’t have any, try subbing in coconut oil)
• pinch of salt
• splash of vanilla
• non-dairy milk (optional, if your hummus is too thick and not blending, add a little)

Method: