Salted Caramel Chocolate Protein Cups

Makes 20 Cookie Cups

Confession time: As much as I love baking with my kids, a couple of years ago there used to be days when they’d ask me to, and my heart would sink a little. As awful as it sounds, I just couldn’t be bothered for the mess — a million washing up bowls, flour all up in places I didn’t think possible and the end result was a dry sugar-filled ‘treat’ with zero nutritional benefit. These days, on the other hand, I love it! And this recipe in particular is just perfect for those days. One bowl. 5 minutes to prep. 8 minutes to cook. And to top it off, these gluten free, refined sugar free and vegan bites of deliciousness provide only 127 calories, 4g of plant based protein and 2g of fibre.

INGREDIENTS

For the Cookies:

· 90g Quinoa Flour
· 40g Coconut Sugar
· ½ tsp baking powder
· 170g Hazelnut Butter (any nut butter would work well here though)
· 90mls Hazelnut Milk (or any plant milk would do)
· 25g Cacao powder or Unsweetened Chocolate protein powder (I used “That Protein” Brown Rice Protein with Raw Cacao)
· 10g Chia Seeds
· Pinch of Himalayan salt

For the Salted Tahini Caramel:

· 2 tbsp Light Tahini
· 2 tbsp Maple Syrup
· 1 tsp Vanilla
· 1½ tbsp Melted Coconut Oil
· Pinch of Himalayan salt

METHOD

· Preheat the oven to 180C.
· Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
· In a large mixing bowl, add all of the cookie ingredients and mix well until thoroughly combined.
· With slightly wet hands (so that the mixture doesn’t totally stick to your hands), roll a little less than 1 tbsp of the dough into a ball, then flatten slightly in the on the lined baking tray.
· Taking your thumb, carefully indent each cookie to create a nice little well for the caramel.
· Bake in oven for 8–10 minutes.
· While the cookies are cooking, make the tahini caramel.
· In the same bowl used to mix the cookies (to minimise washing up), combine all of the caramel ingredients and mix well
· When cookies are ready and have cooled slightly, spoon the caramel into the indent of each cookie and enjoy!
· Unless you want to freeze some (I normally freeze half), in which case don’t fill with caramel. Freeze them once the cookies have cooled.

Optional — Pomegranate Seeds on top of the caramel for a little fruity extra.

Nutritional Information

Calories — 127
Fat — 9g
Carbohydrates — 7 g
Protein — 4g
Fibre — 2g