Until a couple of years ago, I had never even heard of carob. Then we visited Luca’s family in Spain and suddenly it was everywhere. Carob trees lining the roads and carob powder in everything from chocolate to cookies to spreads. It’s a huge part of the food culture in Mediterranean countries that just doesn’t exist in most of the rest of the world, and once you try it you kind of understand why.
Carob is hard to describe if you haven’t had it. It’s often compared to chocolate, which is fair in some ways and completely misleading in others. It has that same deep, dark, slightly bitter richness that chocolate has, but it’s also earthier and naturally sweeter, with a flavor that’s distinctly its own. It doesn’t taste like a substitute for chocolate. It tastes like carob, which I can assure you is a very good thing!
These cookies have been in our rotation ever since. They’re incredibly easy to make, which is part of the appeal, and the texture is somewhere between a cookie and a brownie, slightly fudgy in the middle with a bit of crispness on the outside. The flax seed holds everything together and the coconut sugar adds a really nice caramelly sweetness that works really well with the carob.
The chocolate chips and chopped dates are both optional in the sense that the cookies are good without them, but they’re highly recommended in the sense that we basically always add both. The dates add little pockets of caramel sweetness throughout, and the chocolate chips because why not?
If you’ve never cooked with carob before, this is a great starting point. It’s pretty widely available in health food stores and online, and once you have a bag of it you’ll start finding reasons to put it in everything.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Make the flax eggs first: mix 2 tbsp ground flax seeds with 6 tbsp water and let sit for 10 minutes until gelatinous.
- Preheat your oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the olive oil and coconut sugar until combined.
- Add the flax eggs and oat milk and mix well.
- Add the oat flour, carob powder, baking powder, and salt. Stir until a dough forms.
- Fold in the chocolate chips and/or chopped dates if using.
- Scoop the dough onto the prepared baking tray, leaving space between each cookie. Flatten them slightly with your hand or the back of a spoon, as these don’t spread much on their own.
- Bake for 12-14 minutes until set around the edges but still slightly soft in the center.
- Leave on the tray for at least 10 minutes before eating. They firm up as they cool and the texture improves significantly once they’ve had time to set.
