Friday, February 21, 2014

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Candy Substitute Bites

Who here loves movie theater candy?  Everybody raise your hand.  If your hand isn't up, you're lying!  Candy is delicious, especially while watching a Hollywood blockbuster.


I have done a post before about cookie dough bites, but these reminded me more of the candy I used to love.  Plus what is the harm in trying out a lot of recipes and picking out the best ones?

This recipe comes from the Instagram of @mindovermunch.  She has a TON of awesome looking recipes, so I will probably post about her again.  I think this is the first recipe of hers that I have tried (I may be wrong), and I did find it to be quite complicated.  However, the complications were probably totally my fault as I did not follow her instructions exactly, but we'll get to that later.  Without further ado, here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 can chickpeas/garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed well (also make sure they are pretty dry after you rinse them off)
3 T peanut butter (@Mindovermunch suggests to use 1 T of regular natural peanut butter and 2 T Better 'n PB to cut down on calories and fat.  I chose to do as she suggested, using Peanut Butter and Co. White Chocolate Wonderful as my natural peanut butter.)
1 t vanilla
Pinch of ground cinnamon
Salt to taste
1 T honey
Stevia/Splenda to taste
1 T mini dark chocolate chips (I used Enjoy Life chips, and I probably used a couple of tablespoons if I'm going to be honest!)
Unsweetened almond milk if necessary to reach desired consistency (I didn't need any almond milk.)
2 oz. dark chocolate chips (for melting--I used Enjoy Life chips again, and I probably used way more than 2 oz.)

Procedure:
1. Combine chickpeas, peanut butter, vanilla, cinnamon, salt, honey, and Stevia in a food processor.  I used my Ninja and blended the chickpeas up until smooth first before adding the rest of the ingredients, because I hate when the chickpeas don't get blended enough and leave chunks.
2.  Add milk if necessary.  Again, I didn't need any milk.
3.  Stir in the tablespoon of mini chocolate chips.  This step can also be omitted to save some calories, but why would you ever omit chocolate?!
4.  Chill the mixture for 30 minutes.  @Mindovermunch isn't clear as to whether this is in the refrigerator or the freezer, but I put my mix in the freezer just to be safe.
5.  After the mixture is sufficiently chilled, roll 1/2 teaspoon of dough into a small ball and place onto a plate.  Repeat this step with the rest of the mixture.  Here is where I made it more difficult on myself.  I took a full teaspoon of the mixture to roll into dough and then chose to cut them in half after they were frozen, but they mostly broke apart.  Therefore, definitely follow the 1/2 teaspoon rule even though it will take a while to do this for the whole recipe.  Also, the batter is very sticky due to the honey and peanut butter, so be prepared for your hands to be covered.
6. Return plated balls to the freezer to chill for ten more minutes.
7. Right before removing the cookie dough balls, microwave the melted chocolate chips in a small bowl at 30 second intervals, stirring often.  This ensures that the chocolate doesn't burn, and it all gets melted.
8.  Remove cookie dough balls from the freezer and drizzle the melted chocolate over the bites.  Again, here is where I made it more difficult.  I cut my teaspoon size balls in half and covered the flat part with chocolate.  For the balls that didn't break up into pieces, this worked well, but it took FOREVER!  I got impatient and decided to just cover the rest in chocolate, similar to the way the real candy is, which also requires a lot more chocolate than 2 ounces.  Therefore, I totally negated the healthiness due to my difficulties and impatience.
9.  Chill the drizzled chocolate covered bites in the freezer again for another ten minutes to set the chocolate.

@MindOverMunch's Macros (per bite, yields around 144)
7 calories
1.1 grams of carbs
0.3 grams of fat
0.2 grams of protein

Macros for my version (per bite, yields about 45)
22 calories
3.2 grams of carbs
0.6 grams of fat
0.8 grams of protein

If I were to make these again, I would follow @Mindovermunch's recipe more closely, and now that I've tried two kinds of cookie dough bites, I may be testing out my own!  Check out @Mindovermunch's Instagram for a better picture of her bites creation and more awesome recipes!

I have a recipe for PB&J protein pancakes and a review of the new Quest Nutrition Cookies and Cream flavor coming up.
As always, happy eating!