Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
The perfect recipe to hit any sugar craving. This recipe is so quick and easy that it just needs to be added to everyone's repertoire (even if I do say so myself). These cookies can also be altered to your liking because you can replace the chocolate with nuts or dried fruit and still have some delicious cookies. If you prefer softer, fluffier cookies you can also just bake these on a lower shelf in the oven.
These cookies really serve every purpose and there is definitely no way you can tell that these are vegan. I honestly don't believe that I will ever need to make another chocolate chip cookie recipe.
In this post:
Why make vegan cookies when I'm not a vegan?
Well as usual, I like a challenge. I wanted to create a chocolate chip cookie recipe that no one could tell were vegan. I'm not vegan myself but I do like to try different techniques and understand different kinds of baking. Traditional baking relies so heavily on butter and eggs that I thought this would be a fun little challenge.
Veganism has also increased by 400% over the last 12 years and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. The vegan diet has definitely shown to help the environment and if we all went vegan, we could reduce food related emissions by 70%. But, I'm not here to push the vegan diet although we all should be trying to reduce our meat and dairy consumption because of this.
Everyone becoming vegan overnight definitely won't happen and there are also some downsides to the scenario that would need to be taken into account.. However, the vegan diet definitely isn't a fad that is going to disappear so we might as well embrace the good parts of it. Wherever we can reduce the meat and dairy in our diets is a great thing to embrace and vegan chocolate chip cookies doesn't seem like a bad place to start.
Soft or chewy cookies?
Chewy cookies are my absolute favourite, they just have the right amount of crisp and with massive chunks of chocolate, what could be better? If you are like me and want to make sure your cookies stay chewy, make sure you measure the flour precisely. Too much flour will make your cookies cakey. You will also want to cook these on the top shelf of the oven so that the heat is more intense making them spread and get that nice crust whilst still being chewy in the middle.
If you prefer soft, more cakey cookies don't worry. These cookies are versatile. Just make sure you cook your cookies on a lower shelf of the oven. You can also add an extra 2tbsp of flour if you want to make sure you get that cakey texture.
Can I make cookies in advance?
With many cookie recipes, you can also make these in advance. If you want to make the cookie dough a few days in advance you can leave the full bowl of dough, covered with cling film, in the fridge. When you come to rolling the dough in to balls just remove the dough from the fridge 25-30 minutes in advance and then bake as normal.
The cookie dough can also be frozen for 2 months. Just roll it into balls, place on to a baking tray lined with baking parchment and then into the freezer. Once the cookie dough balls have frozen, they can go into a sealed freezer bag or airtight container. When you want to bake them, just remove from the freezer and let them come to room temperature for 15-20 minutes. You might need to bake them for an extra 2 minutes or so but that's not a hard price to pay for having, almost, instant cookies.
The baked cookies can also frozen! So many options, which one to choose. When you want to eat the frozen baked cookies just leave them on the side to come to room temperature and then enjoy.
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Prep time
15-20 minutes
Cook time
10-12 minutes
Makes
12
Ingredients
100g Vegan Margarine
220g Light brown sugar
2 tbsp Dark brown sugar
125ml Coconut milk
1tsp Vanilla extract
275g Plain flour
1tsp Baking powder
¼tsp Bicarbonate of soda
1/4tsp Salt
100g Vegan chocolate (chopped)
Making the Cookie Dough
Preheat oven to 220C/200C fan and line two large baking trays with baking parchment.
Beat the vegan margarine and sugar together until they are fully combined. They do not need to be fluffy but smooth with no lumps of butter. Add the coconut milk and vanilla and then mix until mostly combined.
Fold in the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt and chocolate. For this recipe I like to use chopped chocolate because I like to find big chunks of chocolate every now and then but you can use chocolate chips if you prefer.
Dividing the Cookie Dough
Divide the mixture into 12 even balls and place on to the prepared baking trays. The mixture is quite soft so you might want to use some spoons to make balls of cookie dough and there's no need to worry about making them perfectly spherical.
Baking the Perfect Chewy or Fluffy Cookie
Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes until the bottom is crisp and they have started to go golden around the edge. Allow to cool and then enjoy!
Top Tip: if you prefer chewy cookies bake your cookies on the top shelf of the oven. If you prefer fluffier cookies, bake them on a lower shelf.
