Gluten-free Chickpea-Cardamom-Tahini ‘Pie’: An Accidental Recipe

Aram, our recent house guest, is on a gluten-free diet. While he and his wife Tricia were here, Aram and I experimented making a gluten-free crust for lahmajoun and gluten free simit. (Coming soon in a separate post.)

After Aram and Tricia left for home, I purchased the Sadaf brand of chickpea flour with the idea of making the gluten-free cookie recipe on the back of the product’s bag and sharing the recipe with Aram.

The company’s recipe is as follows:

Chickpea Cookies

Yield: 36 pieces

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter

1 ½ cups powdered sugar

2 tsp. ground cardamom

3 ½ cups sifted fine chick-pea flour

Directions:

1. Melt butter over low heat. 
2. Combine powdered sugar and cardamom in a large bowl. Mix melted butter into the sugar-spice mixture until creamy. 
   
3. Add chickpea flour, stirring constantly, to produce dough. 

   

   Chickpea dough

   Knead well for 10 minutes. Cover and set aside for 2 hours; do not refrigerate.
4. Preheat oven to 300°F. Roll dough to ¼ inch thickness on a large plate. Cut out cookies with tiny cookie cutters.
5. Place the cookies 1-inch apart on a greased baking sheet. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until slightly golden.
6. Remove from oven, cool and carefully put on a serving plate.

I followed the recipe to a “T” through step #3. Once the two hours were up, I tried to lift the ball of dough out of the bowl, but it crumbled into a heap! 

Crumbled chickpea dough

There was NO way I would be able to roll the dough as suggested in step #4.

What to do? I scooped up the crumbles and put them into a mixing bowl. Put about 1+ Tbsp. water and 2 Tbsp. of well-stirred tahini into the dry, crumbly mass. I gently mixed it together with my hands, making sure all was combined. The consistency was similar to a thick brownie batter.

Using an 8-inch glass pie pan which I lightly greased, I pressed the mixture into the pan. I used the back of a fork to create a pattern on the surface and added a few pistachio nuts as a garnish.

Chickpea 'pie' - before baking

The dessert baked for about 25 minutes at 350°F. 

Baked Chickpea-Cardamom-Tahini 'Pie'

The dessert had to cool completely before serving. Note: The longer it sat, the easier it was to slice and serve.

Candy-coated chickpeas

How did it taste? If you’ve ever eaten candy-coated chick peas, that should give you an idea. It was sweet, without being too sweet, with a hint of cardamom and tahini. 
It was actually pretty good, especially with a cup of coffee!