Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

My friends Jon and Kolene over at VeganGR are always making vegan chocolate chip cookies and slipping them into non-vegan events with great results. By great, I mean no one can detect the damn difference between the vegan chocolate chip cookies and “normal” chocolate chip cookies.

I’m not wild about any butter/margarine substitute, so I took a crack at an Earth Balance free recipe posted on the Post Punk Kitchen instead. I was not disappointed. The texture was a little crazy, but not in a bad way. The tops of these guys were like crackly almost, flaky certainly, but honestly, a great way to satisfy your sweet tooth in a cruelty free way.

A little bonus: in using canola or veg oil, you don’t have to fight that battle of getting the butter/margarine “room temperature” which ultimately ends up in me making margarine soup in the microwave because I don’t have the patience to zap it slowly and/or I didn’t plan to make cookies at 9am that morning and now it’s officially an emergency at 10pm to get a cookie crammed into my pie hole before I hit the hay. Don’t pretend you have not experienced this same emergency before. It’s a real problem.

Makes two dozen two inch cookies or about 16 three inch cookies

1/2 brown sugar
1/4 white sugar
2/3 cup canola oil (it’s a lot, I know…but no other oil is used)
1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk (or your favorite non-dairy milk)
1 tablespoon tapioca flour (I used Arrowroot and still had sound results)
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cups chocolate chips (vegan)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease two large light metal baking sheets.

Mix together sugars, oil, milk and tapioca flour in a mixing bowl. Use a strong fork and mix really well, for about 2 minutes, until it resembles smooth caramel. There is a chemical reaction when sugar and oil collide, so it’s important that you don’t get lazy about that step. Mix in the vanilla.

Add 1 cup of the flour, the baking soda and salt. Mix until well incorporated. Mix in the rest of the flour. Fold in the chocolate chips. The dough will be a little stuff so use your hands to really work them in.

PPK directions: For 3 inch cookies, roll the dough into about ping pong ball size balls. Flatten them out in your hands to about 2 1/2 inches. They will spread just a bit. Place on a baking sheet and bake for about 8 minutes – no more than 9 – until they are just a little browned around the edges. I usually get 16 out of these so I do two rounds of eight cookies. Let cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.

For 2 dozen two inch cookies roll dough into walnut sized balls and flatten to about 1 1/2 inches and bake for only six minutes.

I found however, it took a little longer to produce a cookie that was cooked through. Check on them every minute or so to insure you don’t burn ’em until they are to your liking.