Necessity is the mother of invention and never is that truer than when you have a glut of ingredients to use up! Earlier this week I was using serious amounts of aquafaba (the soaking juice from a tin of chickpeas or beans) and as a result, I ended up with A LOT of chickpeas I needed to use quickly.
So obviously I made hummus. And roasted chickpeas. And had chickpeas in salad. And in pasta. And I was going to make my classic Iron-Rich Super Chocolatey Brownies but I didn’t have all the ingredients. Nevermind, went my brain, if you can make brownies from chickpeas, then surely you can make blondies? Turns out, it was one of my finer moments (thank you brain!) – blended with a few simple ingredients, chickpeas do indeed make damn fine blondies! I was craving chocolate so I added a bar of dairy free milk chocolate gifted from the lovely guys at Moo Free – it worked perfectly but feel free to experiment with other flavours (and tell me about them!)
A little confession – I did end up using some MORE aquafaba in this recipe (not loads). You could probably make it without but it really does add such a moist, cakey quality to the blondies that, well, why would you want to?
Makes 1 big tray
INGREDIENTS
- 2 tins of chickpeas (approx. 400g/240g drained weight)
- 1 cup/280g sunflower seed butter (you can substitute any nut/seed butter)
- ½ cup/125ml maple syrup (can substitute rice malt syrup, agave nectar or honey)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (or seeds taken from 1 pod)
- 1 x 100g bar of Moo Free Organic Milk Chocolate Alternative (or choc of your choice), chopped into chunks
- 1 tsp salt (optional, and only if you are using chickpeas packed in unsalted water)
METHOD
- Preheat the oven to 180C.
- Grease and line a big tray (mine is 11″ x 9″) with greaseproof paper.
- Drain the chickpeas, reserving the soaking water.
- Put the drained chickpeas, sunflower seed butter, maple syrup, baking powder, vanilla and salt (if using) into a food processor and whizz until completely combined. Put into a large bowl.
- Next, put ⅓ cup/80ml of the chickpea soaking water (aquafaba) into a glass bowl and whisk up with an electric whisk for a few minutes until soft peaks form.
- Using a metal spoon, fold a third of the frothy aquafaba into the chickpea mixture before folding in the remainder.
- Gently fold in ¾ of the choc chunks and pile the batter into the greased and lined baking tray. Sprinkle the remainder of the chocolate on top.
- Bake for around 25 minutes, until the top is firm and golden.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool before cutting into squares.
