Whole Wheat And Chickpea Flour (Besan) Chocolate Chip Cookies

Whole Wheat And Chickpea Flour (Besan) Chocolate Chip Cookies

A twist to the old favorite recipe of chocolate chip cookies, here, in addition to whole wheat flour, we use besan/chickpea flour as well!!

It has been a while now that I’ve posted something on my blog space. Writing has always been a stress buster for me, but I guess everyone needs a little break from the monotony of even what they like to do the most. And the break always helps you to come back with fresh ideas in mind. But honestly, I’ve had lots of recipe disasters and also there was no motivation to write about, since the start of Myra’s school, which might be the main reasons for my long gap. But things seem to have settled better now, and after so many days of my non-baking break, I am back with yet another version of the recipe that has become a staple at my home, “The Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies”. This time I’ve experimented with Chickpea Flour, on special request from my sister-in-law, who herself is an expert in baking!

Presenting my eleventh recipe under “My Julie & Julia Project” for this year. For those who don’t know, I have started this project under which I will be posting 100 recipes from my kitchen by the end of the year 2019. This is the Recipe #11. Here is the link to “My Julie & Julia Project” post:

Julie & Julia – Starting my journey

Since I have adapted this recipe from “The Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies” recipe, you will see a world of similarity in these two recipes. I will link that below, if someone wants to skip the Chickpea Flour altogether. And trust me, the classic recipe is a bomb. The cookies taste better with whole wheat flour, than with the all purpose flour. My hubby and baby generally finish up the whole wheat ones in no time. LOL. Here is a link to the classic choco-chip cookies recipe:

Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies – With Whole Wheat Flour

I have not experimented with half-n-half of whole wheat and chickpea flour this time, as I want to pursue this experiment with chickpea flour using little proportion in the start and steadily increasing it. But using 1/4th cup of chickpea flour here along with 1 1/4 cups of whole wheat flour worked great for me.

I have experimented with a different brand of chocolate chips too in this particular recipe, the chocolate chips from Ghirardelli brand. The chips tasted great, but my heart always runs back to the ones from Trader Joe’s. They are like the family favorite. But the Ghirardelli ones were good as well. I guess maybe Trader Joe’s has already set the bar too high for us.

Baking with gluten-free flours is a challenge in itself. You want the recipe to not lose much of its structure and softness when replacing a gluten based flour with the gluten-free one, in addition to getting all the health advantages that a gluten-free flour provides. I have seen that you might need to add some extra protein ingredient, like an egg white or you might need to use some commercial gluten substitute like Xanthan Gum, or also experiment using chia seeds or flax seeds in the recipe. I still have to try playing with that. The possibilities are endless. This particular experiment of mine is using chickpea flour in moderation, so there were less chances of failure. And it turned out to be pretty great. I will be experimenting with increasing proportion of gluten-free flours going forward.

As I have emphasized in a lot of my posts, most of my baking experiments are done using Jaggery Powder now. We are no longer using the white refined sugar anymore. I have always thought maybe the taste might not be the same when we bake or cook using the white sugar alternatives, but I was wrong. The taste is never compromised, rather I would say it gets enhanced.

Californian weather is starting to change now. The heat wave is reducing, and I am all set to welcome and capture the fall colors through my camera lens. The green leaves on the trees will suddenly have a beautiful golden/reddish tone to them. It’s always such a mesmerizing sight. This picture right down is an old favorite from this year, where Myra is welcoming spring in style. I am expecting to see the yellow/golden/red tones on the leaves pretty soon!!

Coming back to the recipe, this one is perfect for those who wish to use some gluten-free flour in their bakes. The experiment has been a successful one, and I will take you straight to the recipe now. Happy Baking!!

Method (Step-by-step with pictures)

• Preheat oven to 375 degree F. Meanwhile, mix the butter and the jaggery powder till the jaggery powder is completely blended with the butter. I prefer to mix by hand since I don’t use mixer. Whisk or spatula is not helpful in this case, since the butter is not in a completely melted state.
  

• Add in the egg to this mixture and stir till all the ingredients are uniformly mixed.

• Now add vanilla essence to the above mixture. The wet ingredients mixture is now ready.

• For the dry ingredients, mix in whole wheat flour, chickpea flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt to the wet mixture.

• Finally add the chocolate chips and give it a good mix with hand. Since we are playing with the gluten free flour here, so it is advisable to put the dough in the fridge for around 1-2 hours or maybe even longer (I kept the dough in the refrigerator for around an hour or so).

• Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Take around 2-3 tbsp of cookie dough and roll into a ball. Then flatten the dough ball and place on the baking tray. I was able to make 17 cookies with the prepared dough.

• Bake the cookies for 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Remove the cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool for at least 5-10 minutes. I refrigerated the cookies for around 15-20 minutes to stiffen up the gooey chocolate chips before storing them.

The chocolate chip cookies are now ready to be served warm or these can be stored in an air-tight container!!