Cookie dough bars

This post is sponsored by Welleco, all opinions are my own. 

Although I’m ready for Autumn and the inevitable mountain of baked goodies I’ll be rustling up, I’m still hanging on to summer with no bake treats. These cookie dough bars have been a daily treat for me lately. Simple to prepare, protein packed and full of wholesome ingredients, but taste like chocolate chip cookie dough! The only difference is you won’t find any flour, refined sugar, gluten or butter in these. In fact, the main ingredient in these is chickpeas! Not just for hummus, chickpeas are the perfect flavour neutral ‘dough’ replacer. Give them to a pal and I’m betting they won’t guess there’s chickpeas in them, though. If you haven’t tried making sweet treats with chickpeas before, give it a go with this recipe and let me know what you think!

The bottom layer is based on a real cookie dough, with some healthy swaps for the traditional sugar laden ingredients of real choc chip cookies.

I’ve made sweet treats with chickpeas before and sometimes they tend to rely heavily on nut butters to add flavour, so I’ve mixed it up by using a small amount of tahini, coconut milk and warming cookie spices (cinnamon and nutmeg) instead.

I added tahini for some healthy fats, plus it’s is always a familiar friend to the trusty chickpea. They’re studded with sugar free chocolate chips and topped with a raw chocolate frosting that’s made simply with coconut oil, maple syrup and cacao powder. You only need one food processor, a small saucepan and a loaf tin for this recipe. If you don’t have a loaf tin, a small roasting tin or tart tin would work too.

I’ve started a new workout routine this month, which is basically a series of torturous workouts every morning on YouTube. I’ve been sore almost every day and as much as I love it, I’m really trying my best to make sure I’m getting enough protein after each session to help my muscles recover. You may have seen I’ve been using WelleCo Nourishing Protein in some of my recent creations like this Nutella Milk or Raw Brownies.

For these cookie dough bars, I wanted to ramp up the protein as much as possible with the ingredients, which is why I based them on chickpeas. There’s just under 20g of protein from the chickpeas alone in this recipe! Chickpeas also contain fibre which makes them super easy to digest. To add in more plant protein I also added in a scoop of WelleCo Nourishing Protein in Vanilla. Throw in the oats and tahini and each bar of this cookie dough contains around 8g of protein! All of it from whole foods too, no animal products in sight.

One scoop of this vanilla infused powder contains a heap of B vitamins which can have a positive impact on heart, mood, weight and digestion. The vanilla protein is my absolute favourite, even just on it’s own with almond milk or water it’s such a heavenly flavour. Did I mention vanilla is my favourite flavour in the world?

If you don’t have the protein powder to hand, you can sub with 1/2 tsp of vanilla powder and an extra 2 tbsp of oats when you add the dry ingredients.

I’d love to know if you’d like more healthy recipes like this, or maybe some shakes, smoothies and breakfast bowls? I usually share simple recipes on my Instagram but would love to add some more to the blog if you’d like to see some more pics and recipes here.

I hope you enjoy these bars, friends! If you make them, let me know by taking a snap and tagging me on Instagram, or leave a comment below. I love to hear from you!