Garbanzo beans, the musical fruit

If this recipe seems weird, it is. I found it on epicurious.com and it had no reviews. This, and my new interest in soaking grains and beans, intrigued me. And, it seemed kind of Christmasy. Plus I owned all the ingredients except raw garbanzo beans, which are CHEAP! So, here it is: Cinnamon Sugar Garbanzo Beans.

To start off, I had to soak my beans overnight. Which meant some planning on my part. I did not plan well. The first time, I raced home from work and starting soaking my beans, around 12, thinking I would make them before I went to my weekly Thursday night ritual of watching 30 Rock. But, I got antsy and left home at 6 and my beans just weren't ready. So, I left them on the counter, and they soaked overnight for a total of 18 hours. But I didn't stop there. I went to school, took a final, stayed and studied and left them on the counter the whole time. When I got home 8 hours later they had sprouted. This was worrisome. I started over the next day, putting a cup of beans in water to cover them and then actually making them in the morning. Planning ahead is the way to go with this one.

I had to do this recipe twice, in the end. The first time I made them in the toaster oven and it was just too hot for the little guys. They all got burnt, but they did leave me with some hope, if I imagined through the charred outer crust they could be pretty tasty. Take two went better. I made them in the real oven. Here's how it went. I heat the oven to 350. The recipe calls for vegetable oil, but I don't have any and I think it's gross so I used melted butter. I stirred in a couple of tablespoons of melted butter and a couple of spoonfuls of sugar and put them on the pan. They looked like little sugar-covered cereal (like Peanut Butter Puffins, to be exact) and I already felt a little successful (I love Peanut Butter Puffins). I put them in the oven and dedicated myself to stirring them every 10 minutes for the 45 minutes the recipe called for.

This is annoying. Sitting around and waiting for the timer to go off every ten minutes means you can really do nothing while your cooking. You can't read, you can't do a crossword puzzle, you can't do anything. But, despite being a slave to my little beans, I continue. After 45 minutes they are supposed to be ready. I pull them out of the oven, add cinnamon and salt as instructed. When I bite into it is pure mush. Barely crunchy on the outside; practically liquid on the inside. But, let's face it, I have my own cooking blog so I'm clearly no moron in the kitchen- I can get through this. I throw them back in the oven and keep on cooking. Probably the cinnamon will just bake in and be extra delicious.

Now I dedicate myself to stirring every 5 minutes, because they are starting to get toasty on the outside and I don't want them to burn. At this point they start to hiss. Very high pitched hissing that drives the cats into the other room. This must be the water escaping, I think, so I keep going. They keep singing along for another 15 minutes. I become worried because I really don't want another cup of burned cinnamon sugar garbanzo beans so I turn down the oven to 275. I start stirring every two minutes, literally hovering right outside the oven door so as to prevent any burning. Eventually, the garbanzo beans quiet down and I decide I'm done. First tastes indicate a need for more flavor. Since I kind of skimped on the salt in the first place, I add some more. And more cinnamon. I let them cool a bit and they develop a really "nutty" color.

Unfortunately they taste like crap. For reals. This recipe sucks. They have a gross texture on the inside (like beans!), they are bland (like beans!), and they don't taste good with cinnamon (like beans!). In other words, don't make these.

But, if you want to try on your own, or if you think you can do it better than me, here is the real recipe: Crispy Cinnamon Garbanzo Beans . And, here is what I did:

1 cup dried garbanzo beans
1 Tbsp sugar (I cut this back)
2 Tbsp butter
Cinnamon to taste (I didn't measure, I just tested it as I went until I got enough)
Salt (same as cinnamon)

Soak the garbanzo beans overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350. Drain the garbanzo beans and dry them the best you can. Melt the butter and mix together the beans, sugar and butter. Spread evenly on a pan. Put them in the oven, stirring as often as you want for 45 minutes or until no longer soft in the middle (you may need to turn your oven down to prevent burning). When done, add cinnamon and salt to taste. Enjoy?

Side note: One thing a friend mentioned to me was that you could change the seasoning on these beans to savory if you would like. This would probably be better.