Vegan chocolate chip cookies.

I am going to admit something to you here that you won't often hear me complain about: I am not the biggest fan in the world of commercially available vegan baked goods.  I'm not going to name any names, but I have had some since I turned vegan and although it certainly is a great answer to a sweet craving, it's just not as satisfying as I wish it was.  And really, I should know better.  I felt the same way about baked goods when I was a vegetarian, so I don't know why I would think it would be better just because now the baked goods I buy are vegan.  Maybe it is because I think that since the stores are so specialized at that point, they must have perfected their recipes.  This is illogical and incorrect.  If you make anything in massive quantities, I am starting to realize it will just never taste as good as the homemade version.

Well, this weekend I decided that I was going to experiment with vegan cookies.  Specifically chocolate chip cookies.  Here were the ingredients I used:

• 2 and 3/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup margarine (softened) - I use Earth Balance soy free
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (actually, it was about 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup demerrara sugar because I didn't have enough dark brown sugar, but 3/4 cup brown sugar would have worked)
• 3/4 cup cane sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp ground chia seeds with 1/4 cup of water
• 1 tbsp vegan milk (I used coconut milk)
• 12 ounces (1 and 1/2 cups) dark chocolate chips (vegan) - I used the miniature ones

I combined the flour, salt and baking soda.  I was supposed to sift them together, but I never do this, I put them in a bowl and then I stir them together.  I've never had a problem with using this technique.

In a separate bowl, I blended the the softened margarine, both sugars, vanilla and chia seeds and water together until well combined (about two minutes).  Then I poured the dry ingredients over the wet ingredients and beat them until combined.  The batter was still a bit dry, so I added a bit of extra coconut milk, which made it perfect.  Then I stirred in the chocolate chips.  I placed heaping tablespoonfuls on the cookie sheets and baked at 350 degrees fahrenheit for ten minutes.

This recipe made two full cookie sheets of cookies - plus enough for me to eat a sizeable amount of it raw, which you can do with vegan cookie batter without worrying about the raw eggs!  One piece of advice that I can give is to actually press these cookies together.  The first sheet I put in the oven I didn't do this with and they fell apart a little bit.  The second sheet of cookies I actually formed each cookie by pressing them by hand so that they would hold together and they turned out perfect.  Here is a picture:

Perfect vegan chocolate chip cookies!