Chickpea choc chip blondies

There are certain recipes I return to not because they are the best thing I know how to make, but because they ask very little of me.

Not in effort, exactly. More in expectation.

They do not require me to feel inspired, or organised, or particularly present. They do not mind if I am distracted, or if I begin them half-heartedly, unsure whether I even want something sweet in the first place. They are, in their own quiet way, accommodating.

These blondies are one of those recipes.

I started making them for practical reasons, as these things often begin. A tin of chickpeas I didn’t feel like turning into anything savoury. A banana that had gone past the point of polite eating. The vague desire for something soft and chocolatey, but without the sense that I was committing to a project.

And yet, over time, they have become something I make for less obvious reasons.

Because there is a particular kind of comfort in recipes that do not ask to be followed too closely. Where the banana can be slightly more or less ripe, the nut butter thicker or runnier, the chocolate scattered generously or with restraint depending on mood. They hold their shape, but not too rigidly.

I notice, too, that I tend to make them in moments when I am not especially clear about what I need.

Not hungry enough for a proper meal, not settled enough to sit still, not quite wanting to cook but also not wanting not to. And so I blend, and stir, and smooth the mixture into the tin almost absentmindedly.

It is only later, when the smell begins to shift the room slightly, that I realise something has changed.

Not dramatically. Just enough.

Soft, slightly fudgy, and forgiving in a way that many bakes are not.

Ingredients

• 1 x 400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed

• 120g nut butter (½ cup)

• 100ml maple syrup

• ½ cup very ripe banana (about 1 medium, mashed)

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• ½ tsp salt

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 45g plain flour (about ⅓ cup)

• 80–100g dark chocolate chips

Method

• Preheat the oven to 170°C fan and line a square tin.

• Add the chickpeas, nut butter, maple syrup, banana, vanilla and salt to a blender and blend until completely smooth. This part matters more than anything else, as it is what gives the blondies their soft, almost cake-like texture.

• Add the flour and baking powder and blend briefly, just to combine.

• Fold through most of the chocolate chips, saving a handful for the top.

• Pour the mixture into the tin, smooth it out evenly, and scatter over the remaining chocolate.

• Bake for 18 to 22 minutes, until set but still soft in the centre. They will firm up slightly as they cool, though not entirely, which is part of their appeal.

I rarely make these in quite the same way twice.

Sometimes they are sweeter, depending on the banana. Sometimes I take them out a minute earlier and they sink slightly in the middle. Sometimes I cut them too soon and they fall apart a little, which I no longer see as a problem to fix.

There is a tendency, I think, to believe that if we are not following something precisely, we are doing it incorrectly. That deviation means failure, or at the very least, a missed opportunity to get it right.

But recipes like this don’t seem to agree.

They absorb variation without much resistance. They allow for inattention, for small changes, for the fact that we are not the same each time we cook them.

And perhaps that is why I keep returning to them.

Not because they are perfect, but because they leave room for me not to be either.