Chickpea Date Nut Bars Vegan Date Sweetened Gluten-Free Oil-Free

Nutrient-dense plant based magic without added oil or refined sweeteners. The classic combo of dates, walnuts and spices gets a whole food plant-based makeover in this easy food processor oat-based recipe.

WHY I LOVE THEM

Outstanding flavor and texture! That’s the short answer. Chickpeas and dates harmonize to create a buttery mouth feel that makes it hard to believe that this is an easy oil-free recipe with no added fats at all. These succulent bars boost my daily intake of pulses while evoking memories of date nut bars from bakeries past. Choosing whole plant foods does not diminish flavor, it amplifies it. I know this to be true. In fact, it’s why I started this blog. And yet I’m still amazed by how much foodie fun a whole food plant-based lifestyle can be.

BAKING WITH BEANS

Using beans in plant-based oil-free baking is relatively new to Western cuisine, with health conscious vegan and plant-based foodies at the forefront of this trend. While many Westerners remain reluctant about seeing beans in these unexpected places, Asian culinary traditions have used beans in sweet confections for centuries, if not longer. Putting beans in your sweet snacks is a delightful way to increase your intake of legumes. And nutritional science suggests that regular intake of legumes may be the single strongest dietary predictor of a long lifespan. Each kind of bean brings a unique nutritional profile, color, flavor and texture to your baking.

I love how chickpeas work in this particular recipe. The color works perfectly with the golden cookie bar aesthetic I associate with date nut bars. Chickpeas have a neutral, slightly sweet and nutty flavor. Their dense consistency is advantageous when the goal is to end up with neat little squares. Other light colored canned beans such as cannellini would probably also work in this recipe but I have not tried them.

THE MAGIC OF DATES IN WFPB BAKING

My sweet recipes get most of their sweetness from whole dried fruits. And my go to dried fruits for sweetening recipes are dates. Dates are intensely sweet with a rich caramel-like flavor that blends in seamlessly with other ingredients. When processed with other ingredients, dates work as a binder, helping to hold batters together the way that eggs do in traditional, non-vegan, baking. Pureed dates also help to lock in moisture, acting as a substitute for added fats in whole food plant-based recipes. From a nutritional standpoint, dates are a whole plant food packed with fiber and a symphony of other nutrients.

My favorite dates for baking are pitted Deglet Noor because they’re sweet, flavorful, widely available and usually soft and moist. You can also use medjool dates by prepping and measuring them in the same way as you would Deglet Noor. When I bake with dates I always begin by slicing them. I’ve found that dates that are supposedly pitted are, in fact, usually not all pitted. Pre-slicing my dates gives me the opportunity to remove any hidden pits and hard stems that may still be attached. In recipes like this one where the dates will be processed in a blender or food processor, slicing the dates allows them to be processed more quickly and effectively. Finally, slicing dates allows for greater consistency when measuring. Once the dates are sliced they can be pressed into measuring cups or spoons.

FOOD PROCESSOR NEEDED

This recipe requires a food processor in order to create a smooth cake-like batter. Electronic appliances like food processors and blenders allow us to quickly and easily harness the power of whole plant foods such as dates and cooked beans, eliminating the need for ingredients like oil, sugar, white flour and eggs which are calorie dense and comparatively low in nutrients.

A DOUBLE DATE RECIPE

Sure, you can munch on these delicious date nut bars while you’re out on a double date, but that’s not what I mean. I’m calling this a double date recipe because dates are used in two different ways, and in two different points in the recipe.

Half the dates in this recipe are used in the batter for sweetening (sugar and refined sweetener substitute), binder (egg substitute), and moistening agent (butter and oil substitute). In order for dates to do all of these things they have to be processed along with other ingredients.

But these are date nut bars, after all. So dates also come into the picture a second time not as stand-ins, but as their sticky lusciously sweet selves. After the first set of ingredients are processed into a batter, more chopped dates are folded in with the walnuts, just like they are in traditional recipes.

MAKE YOUR OWN OAT FLOUR

If you want to use store bought oat flour, that’s fine. But making your own oat flour is easy, fast and economical. All you need is rolled oats, old fashioned or quick, and a food processor or high speed blender. Place your oats in your processor or blender and pulse until you get flour. Don’t over process your oat flour because it will become sticky and not work as well in your recipes. As far as flour texture goes, oat flour that’s a little coarse works better for most types of baking. Don’t try to make too much at a time. Small batches, no more than a cup and a half at a time, are better. I usually only process the amount I’m about to use in a recipe. One cup of oats makes approximately one cup of oat flour. Keep in mind that pure oats are gluten-free, but since oats can become contaminated with gluten during processing or harvesting, choose a brand of oats or oat flour marked gluten-free if you need to be 100% gluten-free for health reasons.

ALMOND FLOUR IN WFPB BAKING

In this recipe, almond flour is an essential ingredient because it adds richness and texture in a way that’s similar to what you get when using dairy butter or its plant based equivalent. Like all types of flour, almond flour is calorie dense. But it is a minimally processed whole plant food and therefore acceptable in whole food plant-based (WFPB) adherent recipes. When compared to cookie bars that rely on dairy or plant-based butter, substituting with almond flour greatly reduces caloric density.

MOLASSES WOW

Molasses is a rich dark syrup which is a byproduct of sugar production. In moderation, molasses is generally considered acceptable in a whole food plant-based lifestyle. And although not all molasses is vegan because bone char is sometimes used in the refinement process, there are many vegan brands of molasses on the market. Unlike other refined sweetener, molasses is packed with minerals, iron in particular. What I love about using molasses in recipes is that a very small amount transforms the flavor profile highlighting spices and adding depth. And by small I mean small. One tablespoon of molasses for this entire recipe is enough to take the already complex flavors to another level of wow.

PROCESS FOLD POUR

This recipe comes together in the bowl of a food processor with no mixing bowl required. If you chose to make your own oat flour, you can leave it in the bowl of the food processor where you just made it because the first step is to pulse together all the dry ingredients. Then add in chickpeas, half the sliced dates and the wet ingredients. Process until a smooth batter forms. Finally, take out the blade, carefully removing the batter that that’s stuck to it. Using a cake spatula, gently fold in the remaining sliced dates and chopped walnuts. That’s it! Now you can pour the batter into the baking pan.

STICK PROOFING YOUR PAN

Home baking requires time and effort. The last thing anyone wants is for the fruit of all that effort to end up falling apart because it got stuck to a pan or baking sheet. Using oil or butter to grease pans is the old fashioned way to get things not to stick. It works, especially if you also add a layer of flour or some other starch, and I still do it sometimes. But because I prefer to avoid using added fats in my cooking, I like to use parchment paper liners whenever possible. You can get parchment paper and baking cups just about anywhere and that’s all you need for baking sheets and muffin pans. Cake, loaf and brownie pans are tricker because pre-formed liners for these pans are not available at most local grocery stores. They are available online and they’re worth getting if you do a lot of baking. I use BakeBarn 8 inch square pre-formed parchment paper liners instead of greasing and flouring my pan. These liners not only help me avoid using added fats, they also save time.

There are also various methods for using flat parchment paper to line deep pans that have been recommended to me which I haven’t tried, like crumpling up a sheet of parchment paper so that it bends more easily along the sides.

When I’m out of liners, or don’t have parchement paper, or if I don’t have the right size liner for the pan I want to use, I’m a stickler about greasing and dusting my brownie pans. I do it even if it means being less whole food plant-based adherent. Not only are baked goods much less likely to stick if pans are greased and dusted instead of just being greased, the starch used for dusting also acts as a protective barrier keeping the grease away from the brownies themselves. For grease you can use oil, vegan butter or even coconut oil (if you don’t mind imparting a bit of coconut flavor). For dusting, I use cornstarch or a gf flour blend if I need to keep things gluten-free, otherwise I go with all-purpose flour.

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