Flourless Vegan Chocolate Cookies
A couple days ago I attempted to make a vegan ‘brain’ lemon jelly for Halloween. It was an epic fail. L I’m not sure if it was the mould I was using, or the ingredients themselves. I used lots and lots of lemon juice, which may have interfered with the gelling nature of agar-agar. It just didn’t set! So I made these instead – charcoal, heart-shaped flourless vegan chocolate cookies. In hindsight I’m glad I failed the brain jelly experiment because this is, frankly, much better.
The cookie texture was almost wafer-like, with crunchy bits from the seeds and the gooey chocolate surprise here and there. They’re flourless, gluten-free, refined-sugar free (if you’re using sugar-free chocolate), and the best thing about them is they do taste like cookies!
These are not your typical Halloween treats but they look the part and, hey, you don’t come to my blog and expect the usual cookie recipes, do you?
The secret ingredients + tips to making the perfect cookies
Instead of using flour we’ll be using our secret ingredient – black beans. You will need a whole can of black beans for this recipe but you can also use dried beans. If you’re using dried beans, you’ll need to make sure you cook them until they’re soft enough that you can squish a bean with your fingers without much effort.
Note that because I wanted to make my cookies as dark as possible for Halloween, I used Dutch pressed cocoa, black tahini and black sesame seeds. You can use normal cocoa powder, white tahini and sesame seeds if you wish. Or you could replace the tahini with peanut butter and use nuts or dried fruit instead of the sesame seeds. Get creative. You won’t break the recipe, I promise.
I used a five-centimetre heart shaped cake cutter with a pressed lid, but you can also use the back of the spoon to flatten the dough. The thinner the cookies (less than 5mm), the crispier they will be. I recommend baking a test batch before committing to a particular thickness. I like mine a little bit soft so I made my cookies slightly thicker.
Another thing to consider is that these cookies won’t spread during baking so you can place them fairly close to each other and fit more on the one pan.
So are you ready to make healthy, protein-rich, flourless vegan chocolate cookies that are cool enough for Halloween, and taste great too?
You know you are!
Flourless Vegan Chocolate Cookies
- 1 can (400g of blackbean (or 1 ½ cup cooked beans), drain and rinse)
- 1/3 cup Dutch pressed cocoa powder
- 1/3 cup dark chocolate (finely chopped (I use Chocolate Counter))
- 1/2 cup coconut sugar
- 2 Tbsp. coconut butter or coconut oil
- 2 Tbsp. black sesame seeds
- 2 Tbsp. chia seeds
- 1 Tbsp. black tahini
- 3 Tbsp. water
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract 1/3 cup chopped dark chocolate
- ¼ tsp. sea salt (plus extra for sprinkling)
- Preheat oven to 180°. Line a baking sheet with non-stick baking paper.
- Mix chia seeds and 3 Tbsp water in a bowl and set aside for 5 minutes.
- Place beans, coconut butter, cocoa powder, sugar and salt in a food processor and blend until well combined. Transfer to a bowl.
- Add chopped chocolate and mix to combine.
- Spoon cookie batter onto the lined baking sheet (or cake presser). Flatten top of cookies slightly using the back of the spoon (aim for less than 5mm thickness). Note that they will not spread when baking.
- Sprinkle with extra sea salt. Bake for 15 minutes. Let cool on cooling rack and enjoy!
Did you make this recipe?
Please let me know how it turned out for you! Leave a comment below or share a picture on Instagram and tag me so I can see your creation.
Keren x