V is for Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie(ish)

I'm not a vegan. No one in my family is a vegan. No one is even a vegetarian. I don't have any friends who are vegan, or at least, not any that are near enough that I see them on a regular basis.

What I am is in need of a "V" post, and when you type just a "v" into the search bar on Pinterest, the first thing that comes up is "vegan recipes." 

I found this recipe, and it intrigued me. I mean, seriously, how could this be palatable?

https://witandwhistle.com/
2011/11/09/chickpea-cookie-pie/

Challenge accepted.

(Let me clarify before I go any further that the pin I found was by a blogger who was using a recipe from another blog. Full disclosure and all.)

The recipe is for Chickpea Cookie Pie, kind of like the giant cookie cakes you can get at Great American Cookie Company at the mall, but upon reading the ingredients (and yes, I do occasionally read through all of them before I start a project), I found the first ingredient listed was canned white beans OR garbanzos. There was a piece of luck, because when I checked my pantry shelves, I discovered my husband used all the canned garbanzos when he made hummus a few weeks go, but I had several cans of white beans that I was planning to use in some soup. Change of plans, beans. You are now dessert.

I rinsed and drained two cans of white beans and put them in the food processor with brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, canola oil, vanilla, salt, quick oats, and applesauce. This was not an appetizing combination:

I whirred it all together, then gave it a taste. It TASTED like chocolate chip cookie dough, but it was very, very runny, more like cake batter than cookie dough. It also had a gritty texture, caused by the oats and not the beans, surprisingly enough. Chocolate chips were stirred in and it was ready to bake.

The directions said to pour it into a greased pan, preferably a springform pan, and preferably a 10" springform pan. I got out a flashlight and poked around in the very back of my cabinet for my springform pans. I used to have three, a set I bought at the Nashville Flea Market some 25-30 years ago. They are of dubious pedigree, but I rarely use them anyway. The smallest of the pans bit the dust a number of years ago, but I had the 10" one (and one slightly smaller). The removable bottom was off-kilter, and I spent some time trying to get it to fit correctly in the bottom of the pan, and it refused. And the reason it refused is because the springer thing that pulls the rim tightly together no longer pulled it tightly together. I had to resign myself that it just had to be good enough, put the whole thing on a cookie sheet in case anything leaked out (nothing really did) and pour the batter in.

I set the timer for 35 minutes (the directions said 35-40), and when my timer went off, I checked the cookie, and it was completely raw in the middle. I let it bake another 10 minutes, took it out of the oven (because SURELY it was done by NOW), loosened the ring on the springform pan, and let it cool about ten minutes. When I came back, I tried to cut a little piece and . . . it was STILL raw inside. Fortuitously, I had forgotten to turn off the oven, so I turned it up from 350 degrees to 400 and put the cookie back inside for five minutes, but the edges looked like they were getting too done (they weren't) and took it back out. Still underdone, but I was OVER done and I left it on top of the stove.

It LOOKS done, but looks are deceiving.

After it had cooled another 10 or 15 minutes, I finally tasted it.

Oozy, undercooked goo.

It was hot and gooey (in an underdone sort of way) and the oats were kind of gritty and the chocolate chips had melted into a mass instead of staying individual chips and I thought it was pretty disgusting.

Ewwy gooey, emphasis on ewwy.

I took a few bits of it to preschool with me, and I felt like it was a little better after it cooled than when it was warm from the oven.

I tried it again when I came home at lunch time, and it was still gooey in a not-done-yet way, but it had improved.

12 hours later, it's not bad. And I would never in a million years guess that the base of the dough was made with white beans.

If you're a vegan and love gooey, chocolatey desserts, this is for you.

If you're not a vegan, just make chocolate chip cookies and enjoy them; life is short.