Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies that Happen to be Vegan

For a class party, a vegan friend brought freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Once only gooey crumbs were left, she told the class they were vegan. People looked shocked to find out that vegan cookies could be so delicious. And, when I asked her for the recipe, I found out they were also super easy to make with "normal" ingredients. You won't have to hunt through specialty stores for some obscure ingredients while your stomach is begging for cookies. So even if you’re baking-challenged, and have only a few ingredients in your cupboard, you can easily have a bellyful of cookies in about half an hour. Or, because this recipe does not use eggs, you could safely gobble up a bellyful of cookie dough in even less time!

Step 1: Ingredients and Important Notes

Serves: Approximately 2 dozen (26 teaspoon scoops of dough)

Ingredients:
2 cups unbleached flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
3/4 cup of vegan chocolate chips
3/4 cup raw sugar
1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil or vegan margarine (depending on your preference)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup soy milk, vanilla soy milk, almond milk, or water (depending on your preference)

-About the chocolate chips: I used semi-sweet chocolate chips. My vegan friend has told me that many semi-sweet and dark chocolate chips in baking aisles are vegan. Just make sure to check the ingredients because many popular baking chips do have milk fat. You could also use carob chips, but I know fewer people prefer those to semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips. You could also skip the chips. I actually prefer chip-less cookies, and know that these cookies are also delicious without the chips!


Cooking Supplies:
large bowl
medium bowl
measuring cup
measuring spoons
whisk or silicon spatula (for mixing)
baking sheets
oven mitt

Bake time: 9-15 minutes; will vary depending on your oven. My oven takes 12 minutes to bake these cookies.

-Why I use a silicon spatula: I use a silicon spatula because it mixes the liquid ingredients and dry ingredients even better than a whisk with this particular recipe. If you only have a whisk, that is fine, but the dough might get caught and you will have to constantly pick it out. If you only have a whisk, I could recommend using  your hands.


Read before starting:
-Do not grease the baking sheet. There is enough oil in the batter.

-It is ideal that the ingredients are room temperature for baking, but it's not necessary.

-Do not put the cookie sheets on the stove while the oven is hot. This will cause the sheets to heat, and the cookies will bake unevenly.

-These cookies do not spread much while baking, so feel free to place them close together on the baking sheet.

-Do not leave them in too long. These cookies will come out soft, but they will harden when they cool. Because they come out soft, a friend told me she has accidentally burnt them before.

-Lastly, always remember to have your oven mitt handy.

Comments

[grilledo]

Yum! I cut the recipe in half, it was awesome.

I used replaced oil with olive oil and water with coconut milk.
added pecans and walnuts and baked til just baaarely golden on top.
They're perfect :)

I will omit chocolate chips next time, the cookie is even better when i pick them out.


(also, used sea salt)

thank you for this recipie

[Domineke]

This response is so late, but I love to omit the chips and add sea salt too. Cheers to yummy sugar!

[Happycake1000]

So how has no one noticed that there is no oven temperature listed for this recipe??

[Domineke]

The oven temperature is listed right before I let readers know how to mix the dry ingredients together. You should preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. I'll delayed saying it on the first slide because I wanted to get that detail as close to the "action" of the instructable as possible. Sorry for the confusion. Let me know anything else that would minimize confusion and get these cookies in your belly faster!

[Mouse.Lady]

I made these cookies the other day, as I've gone vegan for Advent but still want to make a few christmas cookies, :-). When it says in the recipe that these do not spread much, it means it! If you want them to be a bit flatter and rounder, I'd recommend pressing/forming them a bit with your fingers before baking. I'm guessing this is because there isn't much fat in them. I made them with oil this time - I think I'll try (melted) soya margarine next time, perhaps 2/3 cup (approx 150g)? Also, they were quite hard, so I guess more fat would make them chewier?
I put the teaspoon of cinnamon in, but found this amount to be a bit over powering. I think about 1/2 tsp would be nicer. I think it might have been added to make them a bit browner - they don't go very brown on baking, which is I suppose why you have to poke them to check they are done.
I had trouble finding vegan chocolate chips, so cut about 100g of a 70% cocoa chocolate bar into small chunks in order to get the 3/4 cup of chips. I personally thought this was a bit too much - the chocolate that was touching the tray melted and spread out as I removed the cookies from the tray, separating from the cookie. I would try 1/2 cup next time, or about 65g chocolate. And perhaps a bit lower percentage cocoa, as 70% was quite rich. Also, I put a few hazlenuts in, which was tasty. Next, I would try putting a bit of orange zest in as well.
Overall, a nice treat for vegans.

[agray10]

Thank you so much for your recipe. My friend and I make it all the time! We have make a few variations though. We have used coconut milk instead of the soy and added coconut as well as orange zest. YUM!
Thanks again!

[sweettoothvegan]

THESE COOKIES ARE AWESOME!! All of my non-vegan friends and family cautiously take the first bite then they quickly gobble up like 3 more. I think they taste a lot like toll house. I use evaporated cane juice sugar, vanilla coconut milk, and I use the cinnamon. Also the cookies have lots of chips in it, which is great! I most definitely recommend these cookies!

[VeganNutririonista]

Veganism is one of those topics that incites passionate comments, almost like religions and politics. It must be because food and diet are so ingrained in our culture that taking away a portion of it seems vastly unfair. However, most vegans do it as a way of showing their beliefs through what they choose to put in ( and on) their bodies. The incredible benefit is that - when done healthily- it's amazing for your overall health and well-being. We can prove that with countless scientific studies as well as a slew of dieters who have recently started turning to a vegan diet to lose weight, reverse heart disease, and release themselves from a life of insulin injections for their diabetes (and more).

In this case, this was just an author sharing a great chocolate chip cookie recipe that happened to be vegan. No one should feel defensive about that. And, nice trick her friend used by waiting until after the class had tried the cookies to reveal their lack of eggs and "real" butter. That's a classic move!

[lotusduck]

I'm not going too far off topic to say that this recipe is a really bad example for your argument for a vegan diet as a solution to diabetes.

[oznorts]

Thanks for posting this recipe! My wife made them last weekend for a pot-luck party. They were devoured by the other guests. The best vegan cookies I have ever tasted. Probably the only good vegan cookie I have ever tasted. I made them again tonight, but used gluten-free baking flour. The end result was a slightly different consistency, but equally delicious cookie. I haven't tried it with the cinnamon yet. I might add some walnuts next time...

They are very addictive and way too easy to make!

[pruthvisanka]

i aint a vegan but i loved them they r yummy nd super simple to make

[slewis-4]

Thank you for this recipe! It's by FAR the easiest and best tasting chocolate chip cookies I've ever had, vegan or not. The only problem I had was keeping myself from eating all the dough before I baked it :) My batch yielded 28 perfect cookies, and the cinnamon added a flavor boost without being really noticeable. Even my omnivore husband was very impressed!

~Vegan for 5 months

[Stacyhoff]

Did any of the other commenters try this recipe? Are they really good? Why don't they spread when baked? My son is allergic to dairy and eggs so I love recipes like this, but often cookie recipes I've tried turn out not sweet enough or too crunchy or just weird tasting.

[blirsin]

mm nice ^)

[Ssslouter]

(removed by author or community request)

[Emute]

Vegan and vegetarianism are different things. Vegetarians don't eat things like meat, poultry, or fish usually. However they still eat products of animals like eggs, milk, butter...

But vegans take out all animals and animal products including eggs, milk, and butter (all of which are typically used in the making of cookies). Different people sort of bend the rules a bit but that's how it is generally.

[CrayfishYAY]

Chicken cookie, beef cookie, squid cookie, dog cookie, cat cookie, hamburger cookie, lamb cookie, snake cookie, HUMAN COOKIE!!!, grasshopper cookie, & girls' cookies :D.

[AmyLuthien]

mmmm! Soylent Green cookie! XD

[bustedit]

meat cookie

[Mr. Potato Head]

Bacon cookie!

[supersoftdrink]

vegetarians avoid meat. vegans avoid all animal products, including honey, eggs, and dairy.

[chapa-de-frente]

wow, Honey?
a friend of mines mom is vegan, and she has made the best food i have ever eaten anywhere in my life. and she doesnt look sick, she looks stronger than me and im a healthy dude!
but i would need to test the honey substitutes next to the organic honeys to see if i could hang, cant imagine life without honey on breads and biscuits

[knexfan100]

I respect vegans but how in the world can you live like that!!!!???? that is the hardest lifestyle because you only eat plants.

[nikolardo]

Most of the animals that non-vegans eat are vegan. They do fine with it. "Plants" still includes fruits, veggies, grains, legumes, etc. It can be hard to get into and stick with, but it's actually a lot healthier on a number of levels than eating meat and dairy (especially dairy).

[gormly]

Where is the scientific evidence to support what you just said? Oh, that's right, there isn't any... 

You know, I am all for live and let live, do what you want if it doesn;t effect me but when it starts crossing the lines of ignoring (or making up) facts, that's when I speak up.

Vegans can and do live pretty healthy lives, I am not debating that, but so do meat eaters (most of the rest of us). Excess of anything is unhealth, moderation in all things is the key.

This agenda of telling everyone how healthy vegans all are is just nonsense. Add to that the complete BS that we are not "made" to eat meat and that animals do fine being "vegans".. I just stop and say .. really? REALLY? This is how you guys justify your choices? By selective facts, misdirection and outright falsehoods?

I hope these cookies are great and I hope all vegans can enjoy them but keep your rhetoric to yourselves.  Please?

[nikolardo]

And on the dairy level - I don't have a link to post to the info, but the guy who started Eat Right America (http://www.eatrightamerica.com/home) gave a couple presentations at my school, and during the second one, he mentioned that at one point, when he had (I think it was) 11 of the top nutritionists in the country in the same room together to talk, he asked them what one food would each one of them ban. Seven of them said "dairy," three said "milk," and one said "Oreos." Human milk is super-good for you if you're a baby. Drinking cow-milk, which is meant for cow-babies, is a relatively new addition to the human diet, and therefore not something the human body is really prepared to deal with healthily.

[nikolardo]

In addition to what Una said about diabetes: my grandmother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which has about a 5% survival rate. It's one of the bad ones. She's old enough that treatment with radiation or chemo wasn't an option. She'd been off gluten for about a year, and after doing some reading she dropped meat, dairy, and excessive sugar. The cancer has stopped doing anything and she's feeling fine. Not a scientific study, by any means, but she was following examples she read about. I think that some of the unhealthiness of meat in the current era may be due to the way it's raised and treated, though - not just that it's meat.

[Una]

Rhetoric? Everytime there is a vegan recipe on instructables there is somebody who has to start mouthing about why vegans choose to eat what they do. If you want to eat meat eat it. if you don't then don't. Why must you all jump all over a person's choice. This is getting so old. Get over yourselves.

And by the way the American Diabetes Association says
"Eating right and exercising are the best ways for patients with type 2 diabetes to begin to treat their disease. This study shows that a low-fat vegan diet and a diet based on ADA nutrition recommendations can help people with type 2 diabetes control their blood glucose levels and lower their chances for heart and blood vessel problems. These improvements were greater with the low-fat vegan diet."
http://www.diabetes.org/news-research/research/access-diabetes-research/barnard-vegan-diet.html

But then again they are mainly in the business of misinformation and rhetoric.

[mr.space]

I meant humans (omnivores) not eating meat cannot be healthy

[supersoftdrink]

There are vegetable sources of complete protein. (quinoa, for example) They're quite healthy for humans.

I think eating small amounts of meat doesn't have to be an environmental disaster. There are areas of land that don't grow a whole lot easily, other than grazing plants.

The key issue, of course, is that cheese is delicious. I don't eat it every day, but it would be a very sad life, indeed, if I could never have or serve any. It's my 3 year old's favorite food (although he also loves his peas, apples, beans, and spicy lamb curry)

[mr.space]

i doubt not eating any meat can be healthy on any level

[edsobo]

Plenty of people do it every day. It's not even all that difficult. It just takes a little bit of research and awareness about the things you're putting into your body.

[nikolardo]

I agree with DavidRobertson. Humans really aren't geared for eating meat on a physical level, at least not a lot of it. I don't know all the health benefits, but ceasing to eat meat, dairy, and sugar appears to have stopped my grandmother's pancreatic cancer (5% survival rate normally) in its tracks. Meat is consumed so regularly by so many people because of exactly that. It's part of culture, it's easy to get, everyone is used to it. However, what everyone is used to is not necessarily a good idea. I'm sure you've encountered that before.

[gormly]

>> I don't know all the health benefits

I think it says it all right there, dispensing facts and coming to a conclusion based on ancedotal "evidence" and admittedly not knowing "all the health benefits" 

(btw I am happy for your grandmother, thats great news!)

nikolardo, it's great to be a passionate about something near and dear to you, but at least learn all the facts so you don't look like a tool by making statements like that. No offense to you meant, but try to get your information from other sources besides pro-vegan sources (and publicly edited wiki articles).


More importantly...
To assume that quiting meat based products stopped cancer "in it's tracks"  is quite ignorant to the actual disease of cancer. Not only that but it is highly irresponsible, maybe a few people with the same issue will stop eating meat, dairy and other foods which in turns starts causing them specific health problems... do you really want to be responsible for that?

[nikolardo]

You're absolutely right, I certainly don't have enough evidence to back up my argument, especially when it got sidetracked. What I can say is that it is not terribly difficult being either vegetarian or vegan - the hardest part is dealing with people who ask about it. Also, it's really not a new thing, and has been going on for quite some time.
I do doubt quite a bit that anyone would get specific health problems when dropping meat or dairy, unless everything else they eat is absolute junk. But, again, I really don't know, so I shouldn't've said it.

[mr.space]

I can agree with you on that respect, an excess of meat is bad for you.
but the protein content of meat is just unbeatable, hence our lovely enzymes being able to break down the proteins into much needed amino acids, some of which we can only get enough of via different animal meats.
It is in fact only very recently we are able to live without meat- through our transportation systems crops containing most nutrients can be seen in local supermarkets.

[kravel]

Your statement, that there are some amino acids which we can only get enough of through meat, is inaccurate. Amino acids are just building blocks; your body doesn't care where it gets them.

[nikolardo]

Meat does have extremely concentrated protein, which can be quite handy, I certainly agree there. However, as you say, it's broken down into amino acids - plenty of protein AND amino acids are available in nuts, seeds, and beans. The body really doesn't need to be fed just the right amount of just the right stuff. If it gets fuel that's close enough to what it needs, it makes up the difference. It gets used to what you feed it and adapts accordingly.
It is relatively easy to be a vegetarian now because of the availability of foodstuffs, you're quite right there. However, saying that it's only recently that people have been able to live without meat is really not right at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_vegetarianism

[DavidRobertson]

I'm sorry but I think you'll find that if you do some basic research you will discover that you are very wrong.

[mr.space]

such as?