Gluten free chocolate cookies made with chickpea flour! They’re surprisingly excellent, with a nice texture and a nice chocolate flavour. Obviously healthy-ish, lightly sweetened with maple syrup, but definitely a treat.
With the new recipe update, they are very much like flourless brownie cookies, and the texture is significantly improved. There are still some notes to keep in mind with these (mostly with chickpea flour and liquid) so take a look at the notes section below if it’s your first time making the cookies.
Because I don’t follow a gluten-free diet, I really aim to get the perfect texture on any GF recipes I share – if it’s not as good or better than a spelt version, it isn’t posted. These are really, really good.
If you don’t want to buy chickpea flour just for this, I have several recipes on OE that use it – sweet potato latkes, strawberry rhubarb crisp, and you can always make socca. It’s great for binding and thickening, and works well in veggie burgers (like in these black bean meatballs) and sauces.
One reader, Tina, commented: “I recently got a grain mill and used freshly milled chickpeas for this recipe. This was amazing. Not too crazy sweet, but delicious! Great recipe, thank you!!”
Another reader, Correne, said: “I am in the process of making my 3rd batch of these in under a week. I CANNOT believe how perfect they are! My daughters and I are ‘grain free’ – so having a treat like this has us over the moon!! Thank you so much!!”
Ingredients
Ingredient Notes and Substitutions
- Chickpea flour: this can be found with South Asian foods either at the grocery store, in specialty shops, or online. It will be marked as chickpea, gram, besan, or garbanzo flour.
- Cocoa powder: use either cacao or baking cocoa, either work here. Cocoa makes a richer, darker cookie. Make sure you’re using cocoa and not cocoa drink mix – there shouldn’t be any sugar, milk solids, etc. in the ingredient list.
- Vanilla: I use vanilla powder because extract is prohibitively expensive here. Use a teaspoon of extract in place of the vanilla powder and whisk it in to the liquid ingredients. No vanilla? Use cinnamon or another spice you like instead.
- Maple syrup: for this recipe, maple syrup, honey, and date syrup can all be used interchangeably in the same amounts. Maple syrup will make a very slightly less sweet cookie and honey is rather sweeter, so it’s a good way to adjust based on your sweet tooth without adding to the ingredients. I particularly like date syrup in these.
- An egg: I haven’t successfully made these without egg, but you can try these vegan chocolate tahini cookies for a good alternative. There are some comments laying out vegan options (e.g. using a chia egg) but since this isn’t a vegan website and I haven’t found the vegan versions satisfactory, I don’t have a tried and true sub.
Step by Step
1. Mix the dough: whisk the dry ingredient to break up any clumps, then mix the wet ingredients in.
2. Add chocolate: stir in the chopped chocolate to incorporate. Don’t worry too much about over-mixing.
3. Transfer: scoop the cookie dough out onto the prepared baking sheet, about two tablespoons each, for nine cookies.
4. Bake: bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the tops of the cookies are cracked and the edges are just firm to the touch.
Recipe Notes
Chickpea flour varies pretty significantly from brand to brand and it’s important to take a good look at the texture of the cookie dough after mixing. It should be just like regular cookie dough in consistency and very glossy in appearance.
If the dough is dry, which will be the most common issue, then add a tablespoon of non-dairy milk, mix, and add more if needed, mixing between each addition. If it’s your first time using chickpea flour then it may be worthwhile to use a slightly lesser amount of flour and add more as needed to get the same texture as pictured above.
Don’t be tempted to reduce the amount of coconut oil – they texture is poor with a lesser amount. I know it’s a bit high for one of my recipes but these are very well worth it.
How to Store
Storage: keep in a sealed container at room temperature for 3-5 days.
Freezing: place fully cooled cookies in an airtight container and freeze for up to three months.
Expert Tips
- Line the sheet: these do stick a little to the baking sheet, so I recommend lining over greasing for this recipe.
- Don’t taste the raw dough: the chocolate covers up the chickpea flour taste completely BUT it’s very important not to taste the raw dough and try to avoid smelling it, too. Wet chickpea flour smells awful and you might be tempted to toss it if you taste it before baking.
- Don’t over-bake: if over-baked, the cookies will be dry and cake-y, so err to the side of under-baking if unsure.
- Mix the oil and syrup: this helps to cool the coconut oil down further in case it’s still warm and prevent any egg scrambling, so you don’t have to wait for the oil to cool.
- Use room temperature ingredients: I keep my eggs on the counter and always forget to mention this, but it should be at room temperature for this recipe for the best results. To quickly bring an egg up to room temp, submerge it in warm water for five minutes.
More Gluten-Free Desserts
Vegan Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
Almond Flour Brownies
Chocolate Hazelnut Tart
Almond Chocolate Chunk Cookies
If you make these Chickpea Cookies or any other dairy-free cookie recipes on Occasionally Eggs, please take a moment to rate the recipe and leave a comment below. It’s such a help to others who want to try the recipe. For more OE, follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, purchase the Occasionally Eggs cookbook, or subscribe for new posts via email.
Double Chocolate Chickpea Flour Cookies
Description
Ingredients
- 110 grams (¾ cup) chickpea flour besan/gram flour
- 25 grams (¼ cup) natural cocoa powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon vanilla powder or 1 teaspoon extract
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- 80 grams (⅓ cup) coconut oil, melted
- 80 ml (⅓ cup) maple syrup or honey
- 1 large egg room temperature
- 100 grams (½ cup) dark chocolate, chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, vanilla, and salt.110 grams (¾ cup) chickpea flour, 25 grams (¼ cup) natural cocoa powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon vanilla powder, ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- In another dish, whisk the coconut oil and maple syrup, then add the egg and whisk again until fully combined.80 grams (⅓ cup) coconut oil, melted, 80 ml (⅓ cup) maple syrup, 1 large egg
- Stir the coconut oil mixture into the flour mixture, mixing until no streaks of flour remains. Stir in the chocolate to evenly incorporate.100 grams (½ cup) dark chocolate, chopped
- Scoop the dough, around 2 tablespoons per cookie, onto the baking sheet. Flatten each cookie slightly with your palm (wet your hands to prevent sticking).
- Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the tops are cracked and the edges are just firmed. Don’t over-bake.
- Cool the cookies for ten minutes on the pan before removing and cooling completely on a rack. They’ll keep in an airtight container for at least three days and freeze well.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate. If this information is important to you, please have it verified independently.
This post was originally published in February 2018. It has been updated with improvements to the recipe, and new photos and text, as of October 2020.
At last a way to use all that chick pea flour that I bought on a whim! I tried to make a syrup using monk fruit as a substitute for the maple syrup. It wasn’t quite as sweet as I like but the important thing is that I CAN’T TASTE THE CHICK PEA FLOUR!!! This is a winner!
This recipe is terrible, I wouldn’t feed these to a dog.
What a waste of ingredients.
Sounds like you changed something about the recipe, based on the other rave reviews you see above and across social media for these cookies by people who’ve made them. So sorry you didn’t like them – hope you wouldn’t try feeding chocolate cookies to a dog in any case.
I just made these cookies today and WOW! They are so good!
I used erythritol instead of maple syrup and added a bit of water to the mixture. They turned out just great!
Thank you for the recipe!
I made these as a lil’ quarantine treat since grocery stores were closed for Easter and l was scraping the bottom of the pantry barrel. I subbed vanilla extract for the powder and used an equivalent weight of chocolate chips. The only thing I didn’t have enough of was the cocoa powder – having made it with about 1-2tbsp of cocoa powder, I can say having the full amount of cocoa powder is VITAL to the recipe. My cookies were puffy and not very chocolatey – still very beany, and a little dry (I cooked them for 14-15 minutes since they were still puffy af, and I wasn’t expecting them to be). I had also added a couple tablespoons extra of chickpea flour to compensate for the moisture level – so that just made it bean-city! I was suprised at for how sticky and moist the batter was, how dry and cakey the cookies were at the end. If I were to make it again, I’d definitely make sure I had enough cocoa powder (because I’m sure it does a lot to improve the structure and flavour) and probably double the amount of chocolate chip/chunks in the recipe since I feel I barely got enough.
I need to update the text for this recipe! Please don’t add extra chickpea flour, lol. If you try them again, definitely use the full cocoa amount – and they might puff up while baking but if they do, still take them out at the recommended time and they should partly collapse while cooling.
Hi, I just made these, mine puffed up into a rounded fluffy cookie rather than a soft gooey like in your photos. Any idea why that would be?
Hi Taryn, did you follow the recipe exactly? If you did, then I’d guess that either your oven was running a bit cold and they baked at a lower temperature, or your baking sheet is thicker/nonstick. To account for that you can add a splash of milk to the dough.
Hi! These look amazing : ) Could I use sugar instead of honey?
I haven’t tried this, but I think you could if you add another tablespoon or so of liquid to the mix. Please let me know if you try!
Maple syrup!
Love these! To make them vegan and oil free, I subbed 1 chia egg for the regular egg and use d coconut cream instead of oil. Sooo yummy!
Good. I was hoping there would be an eggless solution posted. Haven’t used eggs in ANYTHING for forty years, and have never had a failure.
You can make a chia seed egg substitute.
Just baked them – taste amazing!! I replaced half of the coconut oil with almond butter : )
I tried this today with vanilla extract. It was absolutely delicious! Thank you for the great recipe!
Really keen to try these. But I can’t have sugar. What would you recommend in place of the 50g of chocolate?
Hi Charmaine – if you can’t have sugar but maple syrup/honey works, then you can probably find a naturally sweetened type of chocolate to use (like Lovechock or Hu). Otherwise, I’d sub in cacao nibs or dried fruit (like cherries). Hope that helps!
Can I use my vanilla extract in place of vanilla powder? If so how much teaspoon wise? One to one or more?
Absolutely! I need to update some of my recipes to reflect that. I use 1 teaspoon of extract in these cookies.
Awesome recipe! Thanks for sharing
Awesome recipe! Thanks for sharing
Hello, what is approx calory per one?
No idea, sorry! You can add the ingredients to an online calorie calculator if you want to find out.
Just made these cookies this past weekend and they were a huge hit in our home! Didn’t have coconut oil so I used butter instead. Definitely a winning recipe, thank you!
I know this is an old recipe, but I just found it today. I used butter and honey and they are incredible! Not too sweet, but everything I want in a cookie.. Thank you so much!
I know this is an old recipe, but I just found it today. I used butter and honey and they are incredible! Not too sweet, but everything I want in a cookie.. Thank you so much!
Love the recipe! I don’t have any vanilla powder on hand. Can I substitute for vanilla extract?
Thanks so much!
Thanks, Stephanie! You absolutely can, just add a teaspoon of extract to the wet ingredients.
I made these with honey and subbed butter for the coconut oil, and they are amazing!! So yummy. Fluffy and chocolatey, almost like a brookie. I love using besan flour so this recipe is awesome!
So happy to hear that, thank you Gabby!
Yay! So glad butter works as I am about to try now with Ghee 😀 Thanks!
I haven't tried it but I don't see why not! If you try it please let me know, and I'll try it soon too and see how it goes.
Yum! Could you freeze the dough as individual cookies-in-waiting do you think? Thank you!