This hummus recipe is blender based, tweaked from my first batch in June 2021 (YT video, blog article). It's thicker and smoother, very little of it getting runny by the next few days.
Reduced water from 1/3 C to 1/4 C.
Picked out more bean skins by using a slotted spoon and slotted spatula, in addition to strainers.
Used puree setting more often than pulse or liquefy, cautiously using rubber spatula for thorough mixing.
The "EZ Blender Hummus" article and video
pertain to the actual procedure for making a batch. I include info
about some substitutions of several online recipes' ingredients for
convenience. This article goes into more details and extra info about
hummus considerations.
Ever wonder about the two bean names? When shopping for the beans, I
had thought chickpeas and garbanzo beans were the same, but wasn't
sure. "Chickpeas vs Garbanzo Beans: What's the Difference?" explains:
A chickpea or garbanzo bean both refer to a plant in the
legume category with the scientific name Cicer arietinum. ... Garbanzo
happens to be the Spanish term while chickpea is the common English
term.
I became curious about "chickpea" as one word instead of two, and
also what chick had to do with the bean. I could not find etymological
reason for "chick". The chick relationship seems to be that chickens
really like chickpeas. "Can chickens eat chickpeas?"
states "Chickpeas are a great source of vitamins, minerals, and some
other key nutrients. Plus, chickens seem to go for crazy for them".
Blender or Food Processor?
I used a very old blender because it's what I have, and no intention
of buying a food processor. Turns out to be loads of recipes that use
either appliance, even though I did a Google search for "blender or food
processor for hummus"
"Blender vs Food Processor" dives deeply into contrasting the two appliances, not specifically for hummus, though.
a blender is a better option for items with a lot of liquid,
like smoothies and soups. A food processor is best suited for foods
that are mainly solid and require more labor intensive handling, such as
chopping and slicing. However, since the line between food processor
and blender has, well, blended, you can find high-end appliances that
handle both tasks admirably.
In deciding the order of ingredients to blend, I felt smooth hummus
was more likely if I blended liquids and powders first, then added the
skin-removed garbanzo beans. The steps in "How to Make Hummus That's Better Than Store-Bought - Easy Hummus Recipe" seemed sensible for starting with mixing the liquids and powders, then adding the beans. (She added water later.)
Removing Bean Skins or Not
Some recipes advocate removing the garbanzo bean skins. The "Do You Need To Peel The Chickpeas?" section of "Easy Hummus (Better Than Store-Bought)" compares both batches, with pix, leaning towards skipping removal.
You can see, even from this photo that the skinless
chickpeas made for a slightly smoother hummus, but in our opinion it
really wasn’t enough of a difference to warrant ten minutes of skinning
chickpeas.
Two sites make good cases for removing the skins for smoothness and also looks.
Using Bean Fluid or Rinsing Beans and Adding Fresh Water
A few commenters at "Homemade Hummus Dip"
mentioned using the canned bean fluid (aquafaba) instead of fresh
water. Retaining the bean fluid sounds good for enhanced flavor and
ingredient conservation. OTOH, "Aquafaba: The Good, the Bad, and the Gassy"
convinced me to, uh, start fresh—"aquafaba contains a compound known as
oligosaccharides. ... The result is bloating and gas, ...."
Vinegar or Lemon Juice
I used vinegar because it's handy. I don't use lemons or lemon juice
often so am hesitant to get them, then think about using up excess. In
any case,
"Substitutes for Lemon Juice" mentions white vinegar substitution is 1/2:1 ratio. If wanting to use lemon juice, "How Much Juice Is In One Lemon?" helps with lemon juice measurements: "if a recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, you’ll need to use about ½ a lemon".
Tahini or Sesame Oil
Tahini, a paste made with sesame seeds, is a main ingredient in
hummus recipes. Weirdly, tahini is near peanut butters at my
supermarket. Even though I bought some tahini, I decided to try subbing
sesame oil. Some commenters at "Homemade Hummus Dip" mention using sesame oil, but only half as much as tahini.
Fresh Garlic or Garlic Powder
I didn't want to buy an entire garlic when I'd use only three cloves.
Garlic would also need cutting up, chopping, slicing. or pulverizing.
Powder form is much more convenient. "Garlic Substitutes" informs—"For 1 clove garlic, substitute 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic or 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder."
Olive Oil or Not
I omitted olive oil because so many of the recipes showed it as an
after-recipe addition, which I've not seen at eateries. I used one less
ingredient and avoided adding extra calories. For using oils other than
olive, "These are the best substitutes for olive oil" lists the following substitutions and describes them.
Informative Website for Several Hummus Considerations
"The BEST Hummus Recipe"
covers four items I've floated: blender vs. food processor, removing
bean skins vs. not, bean fluid vs. added water, and freezing or not.
Another beany topic is soaked beans vs. canned. She used a blender,
which appealed to me. Note: The quantities called for seem to be for a
double recipe; 30 oz of beans is about two cans' worth of beans.
Additional Notable Hummus Websites
"THE BEST OIL FREE HUMMUS IN THE WORLD"
provides a vegan, oil-free recipe (process start time about 1:40). The
ingredients, which include the bean fluid, and blending procedure are
straight-forward. With using a high-speed blender; the outcome somewhat
resembles soft-serve ice cream, Storage in fridge is good for a week.
"Super Easy Hummus"
provides a straightforward food-processor recipe in text and also
embedded video link. The info is pleasingly compact. Excerpted: "I
usually end up using about half of the bean liquid, so be sure to
reserve it! ... Also, I like to let the flavors blend several hours or
overnight before serving this."
"3-Ingredient Hummus Recipe from Nazareth"
is a bit lengthy, and the ingredients amount to five. However, beans,
tahini, lemon juice, salt, and water are as minimalist for ingredients
as I've encountered in my recipe hunts.
"Easy Hummus (No Tahini)"
calls for natural, unsalted peanut butter as a replacement for tahini.
He uses a food processor that already contains chickpeas; thus, no
determination if the beans are skin-removed or not. The simple process
looks good, with ingredients captions, but is missing quantities.
A few weeks ago, I spotted a post on LinkedIn that pointed to "Homemade Hummus Dip".
Some comments gave me ideas for substitutions so I might avoid winding
up with excess, seldom-used ingredients. I needed to click "Read
Directions" button to see instructions, but was glad the website show both ingredient and instruction sections compactly.
My hummus recipe is blender based; numerous other recipes call for
using a food processor. Some replacements, considering ease of use or
longevity or both (varying ratios):
Vinegar (subbing for lemon juice)
Sesame oil (subbing for tahini)
Garlic powder (subbing for garlic cloves)
Vinegar
Most recipes call for lemon juice. One called for both vinegar and
lemon juice. I used vinegar because it's easy. I wanted to avoid
overtarting the hummus, so used less sour fluid than called for (2
tablespoons instead of 3). "Substitutes for Lemon Juice" lists the ratio of white vinegar to lemon juice at 1/2:1.
Sesame Oil
Two commenters at the "Homemade Hummus Dip"
website mentioned substituting the tahini with half the amount of
sesame oil. Besides using half the amount of sesame ingredient, fewer
calories and fluid.
Garlic Powder
Fresh garlic seems to show up in all hummus recipes I looked into.
Even though real garlic is more authentic flavor, I didn't want to buy
an entire garlic. I'd need to peel off three cloves, then hassle with
skinning them or smacking them with a blade to make skin removal easier.
Chunks would also need cutting up, chopping, slicing. or pulverizing.
Pouring garlic powder's easy—1/8 teaspoon per clove!
Omission: Olive Oil
I noticed that numerous recipes called for olive oil, added after
making the hummus. I omitted it as unnecessary and extra calories, even
if it is supposed to be healthy. (Eateries that I've gotten hummus at
don't pour it on.)
I noticed that numerous recipes called for olive oil, added after
making the hummus. I omitted it as unnecessary and extra calories, even
if it is supposed to be healthy. (Eateries that I've gotten hummus at
don't pour it on.)
Recipe Process
My video has the following sections in addition to overall info:
Ingredients
Implements
Bean processing (draining, rinsing, loosening and removing bean
skins, re-rinsing and re-draining). (Skinning the beans makes for
smoother hummus.)
Blending (liquids and powders first, then the beans)
Finishing up (pouring into server, sprinkling paprika, serving or storing, stats
Recipe Afterthoughts
The process for separating the beans from skins was more involved than I anticipated. Why remove the skins? "How I get the shells off cooked CHICKPEAS (easy) - Steven Heap" shows a method. The best reasons for skins removal is just before the 3-minute mark.
My bean skin removal process didn't go as quickly and thoroughly as
I'd hoped. For making hummus the next time, I'll use a deeper, bigger
bowl and strainer, and also use a slotted spoon and spatula.
The finished hummus (10 1/2 oz yield) poured out thinner than I
expected. Best to use less fluid at the onset. Be mindful of amount of
fluid called for and how substitutions might affect viscosity.
On the second day, water started to separate from the hummus. I
scooped the thicker stuff for consuming anyway. Ob the third day, I
poured the rest into my salad greens and tossed. Tasty!
The box calls for only 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter and one egg besides the packaged mix. Simple. But I didn't want to use only all butter for the fat.
Sooo, I used half the butter called for. The other half, I replaced with one tablespoon of sesame oil and enough cooking oil to fill 1/2 cup.
Yes, I realized AFTER I baked the cookies that I put in too much cooking oil. I should have added three tablespoons of cooking oil instead of seven, resulting in 400 extra calories (200 calories x 2 oz. oil).
The results weren't disastrous. The cookies came out crispy, and just a mite oilier than if I'd replaced the correct amounts of fat. The cookie webpage claimed the cookies to be "chewy". They had 400 additional calories spread over 46 cookies, which amounted to less than 10 extra calories per cooky.
According to the Krusteaz box's nutritional table, the dry ingredients total 2160 calories (120 calories x 18 servings of two 2"-diameter cookies). A prepared mix of dry and wet ingredients total 3060 (170 per serving). Anyway, if I had prepared my 46 cookies with the equivalent fat substitutions, each cooky would have been 66 1/2 calories (3060/46). Instead, each cooky came to about 75 calories (3460/46).
The Krusteaz box displayed a table that listed yields as follows:
56 2" cookies (2 t dough)
24 2-1/2" cookies (1 rounded T dough)
2 3" cookies (2 rounded T dough).
The nutritional table estimated a yield of 36 2" cookies. As my yield was 46, I'm guessing my tablespoonfuls were somewhere between level and slightly concave.
Although I increased the number of ingredients from the box's recommendation, it was by only two. The sesame oil, a favorite additive of mine, gave the cookies a nutty flavor. The cooking oil reduced the amount of saturated fat because of butter. Yes, overall fat was higher. Next time, I'll try to remember to substitute the right amounts. :-)
My pixstrip panels show the following images:
Implements
Ingredients
Pan with raw dough/baked cookies
Plate of cookies (yum)
To search for other sweets recipes (most of them EZ), use the search feature at the upper left of the webpage, or click keywords in the index at the upper right.
Last month, I published the PC cake mix cookies recipe—featuring pecans and coconut, and using French Vanilla cake mix as the dry ingredient base. This time, I thought about a familiar, yet different cooky recipe, using my standard cake mix recipe. One variation of chocolate chip cookies is using half white cake mix and half fudge or chocolate cake mix.
In the distant past, I used to buy Jiffy Cake Mix, one white and one chocolate, and mix them together. (Each Jiffy box holds 9 ounces of powder, about half the amount of regular cake mix.) The Jiffy website alludes to less availability of their products in stores than the company prefers, although it does have a webpage for online shopping.
Hmm, the cartoon carton reminds me of Justin Timberlake in the SNL Veganville skit, looking like a pink brick of tofu. Anyway, as my supermarket did not carry Jiffy cake mixes, I thought I might buy one of each full-size mixes, weigh, mix half and half, and save the other halves for something in the future.
I spotted Duncan Hines' marble cake mix and decided to buy that powder instead—one box of mix instead of two. The box contains one main sack of white cake mix and a small pouch of chocolate powder mixture.
My pixstrip shows the ingredients on the left (powder mixes, coconut, chocolate chips, eggs, oil), baked cookies in the middle, and cooled and stacked cookies on the right.
Implements
cooky pan(s)
pastry blender
medium-large mixing bowl
small mixing bowl or large cup or jar (for eggs and oil)
measuring cup
measuring spoons
cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
cooling rack for done cookies
Ingredients
2 eggs
1/3 C cooking oil (I replaced 1 T with sesame oil.)
1 18ish oz. marble cake mix (I used Duncan HInes brand.)
1 C flaked coconut (I broke up the bigger, stuck clumps.)
1 C chocolate chips
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Pour the coconut into a medium-large mixing bowl, breaking up the lumps.
Pour the cake mix white cake and chocolate powders into the coconut, using the pastry blender to blend together.
In a bowl or large cup, combine the oil and eggs. For a more aromatic flavor, exchange 1 T of the oil with 1 T sesame oil.
Pour the wet ingredients into the larger bowl and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
Fold in the chocolate chips.
Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough. Shape to rounded, level, or concave height.
Drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet. Slightly press the lumps with the bottom of the measuring cup for flatter cookies. OK, be lazier and press down with palm or fingers together.
Bake for about 10 to 11 minutes until the edges are lightly browned.
Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack. These cookies don't actually require much coaxing to loosen them from the pan.
Shaping the dough slightly concave yielded 52 cookies, same number as the pecan coconut cookies. The calories amount is a bit more—78 for these, 82 for the PCs. However, 4 calories per cooky difference isn't a lot to fuss about.
The following table shows the effect of including or excluding chips, coconut, or both. Note that omitting both chips and coconut result in the grand calorie savings of 25 per cookie. Can you stop at one?
Ingredient, calories
Version
A
B
C
D
cake mix powders, 2040
✔
✔
✔
✔
2 eggs, 140
✔
✔
✔
✔
1/3 C oil, 533
✔
✔
✔
✔
1 C coconut, 560
✔
✔
—
—
1 C chocolate chips, 800
✔
—
✔
—
batch (52), total calories
4073
3273
3513
2713
calories per cookie
~78
~62
~68
~52
One closing remark about this cooky recipe—the coconut didn't come through as prominently as I expected. A redo with adding coconut extract might enhance it more. Maybe fuggetabout coconut altogether.
Additional Past Cooky Recipes
PC Cookies (pecans and coconut as featured add-ins)
Personal Computer? Politically Correct? Printed Circuit? Peanut Cluster? Nah! I wanted to think of a way to recall main ingredients for this cooky recipe. Sooo, using a recognizable pair of letters would help—pecan coconut.
Sure, "p" could also mean peanut, peach, praline, and "c" could also mean carrot, caramel, crunch.
In Googling "pc", the most popular hits that come up pertain to personal computers. As I progressed in entering characters of my article title, I saw that Google started autofilling a suggestion for "pc cookies", the topic being cookies on personal computers.
As in many of my other cooky recipes, I used boxed cake mix for convenience. My hyperlinked list at the bottom of the article has only one scratch recipe. I'm a big believer in few ingredients and easy preparation. I came up with this recipe came from wanting to bake cookies without chocolate that was likely to melt in summer weather—no chips, chunks, or ganache.
These cookies surprised me for being crunchy rather than soft and chewy. I think my recollection for soft and chewy is from cake mix cookies I had baked, um, a long time ago.
In the distant past, the standard cake mix cookies called for adding 2 eggs, 1/4 cup of oil, and 2 tablespoons of water to the powder. The cookies came out of the oven initially soft until cooled. They were crunchy like store-bought cookies for maybe an hour or so, then became soft and chewy. I think instructions said to store in an airtight container after they cooled to prevent them from becoming soft and chewy.
The standard recipe now calls for 2 eggs and 1/3 cup of oil. A few years ago, I did try the older recipe with the newer cake mix. The cookies tasted fine, but they were quite crunchy and never softened.
It seems that big-name cake mix companies, within months of each other, changed their recipe and touted the addition of pudding. To my recollection that move came on the heels of a Pillsbury Bakeoff winner having put pudding into a cake mix cake. I haven't been able to find a link to the history of addition of pudding to cake mix powder. Maybe some other baker who reads this article can enlighten.
Anyway, onward to the recipe! Implements
cooky pan(s)
pastry blender
medium-large mixing bowl
small mixing bowl or large cup or jar (for eggs and oil)
measuring cup
measuring spoons
cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
cooling rack for done cookies
Ingredients
2 eggs
1/3 C cooking oil (I replaced 1 T with sesame oil.)
1 18ish oz. white cake mix (I used Duncan HInes French Vanilla.)
2 C flaked coconut (I broke up the bigger, stuck clumps.)
1/2 C chopped pecans (I used a 2 1/4 oz. pack of pieces, which I chopped into smaller pieces.)
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Pour the coconut into a medium-large mixing bowl, breaking up the lumps.
Pour the cake mix powder and nuts into the coconut, using the pastry blender to blend together.
In a bowl or large cup, combine the oil and eggs. For a more aromatic flavor, exchange 1 T of the oil with 1 T sesame oil.
Pour the wet ingredients into the larger bowl and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough. Shape to rounded, level, or concave height.
Drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet. Slightly press the lumps with the bottom of the measuring cup for flatter cookies.
Bake for about 9 to 10 minutes until the edges are lightly browned.
Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.
Shaping the dough slightly concave yielded 52 cookies, calculated to about 82 calories each. YMMV.
How about a macaroon cooky that tastes a lot better than a gluey coconut clump? How about a cooky that chews like a softish cooky and has dominant coconut texture and flavor? Use a cake mix for the dry-ingredient base.
Most of my recipes are about minimal process and few ingredients. Most recipes I read lose me if I see more than six ingredients or multiple steps or time investment, or a combination of those conditions. Some of my ingredients at home drive my baking choices. One item I had was a bag of coconut I got free with a purchase of something else. I also had a box of white cake mix that I wanted to use up.
I based my recipe mostly on the ExclusivelyRecipes.com French vanilla macaroon bars recipe. A main deviation was mixing 1/3 C cooking oil into the wet ingredients instead of cutting in 1/3 C butter into the cake mix powder. I decided to try making individual cookies instead of shaping the dough into a pan and cutting it into bars after baking. I omitted the chocolate to keep the recipe simple.
Another recipe I consulted was the Chocolate Chip-Coconut Macaroons from the Betty Crocker Ultimate Cake Mix Cookbook. I deviated from the recipe as follows: I used only 2 T water instead of 1 C, used half as much coconut, used 1 egg instead of 3 egg whites, and omitted the chocolate. The recipe is online except that they omitted the quantities for the ingredients, which they want readers to request by email. Smart cookies will be able to infer the quantities, based on this paragraph and my list of ingredients. :-)
My pixstrip shows three images:
Implements
Ingredients, dry and wet
Baked cookies
Implements
cooky pan(s)
pastry blender
medium-large mixing bowl
small mixing bowl or large cup or jar
fork or similar item for mixing wet ingredients
measuring cup
measuring spoons
cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
cooling rack for done cookies
Ingredients, dry
1 1/2 C flaked coconut
1 18ish oz. white cake mix
ingredients, wet
1 egg
1/3 C cooking oil (Replace 1 T with sesame oil if desired for flavor twist.)
1 t vanilla extract
2 T water
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Pour the coconut into a medium-large mixing bowl, breaking up the lumps.
Pour the cake mix powder into the coconut, using the pastry blender to blend together.
In a bowl or large cup, combine the oil, egg, vanilla, and water. For a more aromatic flavor, exchange 1 T of the oil with 1 T sesame oil.
Pour the wet ingredients into the larger bowl and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough. Shape to rounded, level, or concave height.
Drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet.
Bake for about 12+ minutes until the edges are lightly browned.
Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.
Shaping the dough slightly concave yielded 45 cookies, calculated to about 80 calories each. YMMV.
My profession had been technical writer/editor. Through TheWriteJob clublet (blog at http://thewritejob.blogspot.com), I have been exploring my inner creative writing, which includes mostly language enlightenment, entertainment, and a-muse-meant. Over time, I have become more active with images and my YouTube channel.
