Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Recently, I told you about Conversions Class. There, we took a conventional recipe for a baked good and changed each ingredient until we had a vegan more health supportive baked good at the end.
Denise and I had traditional chocolate chip cookies. By the end, these were pretty good and I was so happy to actually create a recipe for a baked good . . . a slightly healthier baked good nonetheless.
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
An original!
Ingredients
1/2 cup coconut oil (slightly solid or at room temperature)
3/4 cup coconut sugar
1 flax egg **
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup + 2 tbsp whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 pinch fine salt
1 cup Sunspire chocolate chips (or any vegan chocolate chip)
**Flax Egg – 1 tbsp ground flax mixed with 3 tbsp water. Commonly used as vegan egg replacement.
Procedure
1.) Preheat oven to 350 F.
2.) Cream together coconut oil and coconut sugar until they are light and creamy. Don’t mix too much as the heat of mixing may melt coconut oil too much.
3.) Add flax egg & vanilla. Mix to incorporate.
4.) In separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt.
5.) Fold flour mixture into oil/sugar/flax egg mixture in 1/2 cup increments until flour is completely incorporated.
6.) Fold in sunspire chips.
7.) Drop 2 teaspoon sized cookies onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. If cookies are oddly shaped, gently roll into a ball and press down slightly.
8.) Cook 10-12 minutes or until golden. Let cool.
As we tasted each batch we noticed that the actual flavors of the cookie were more prominent. This is because the conventional recipe has so much sugar in it that a lot of flavors get masked without even realizing it!
These little guys held there shape and softness even after 1 week. To me they taste BETTER than the original and aren’t filled with garbage chemicals.
I am pretty proud of this recipe as it really showed me how to go about not only creating recipes but how to create them with ingredients that are better for your body!
Any experiences with vegan baking? What is your absolute favorite baked good?
Health Supportive Recipe Conversions
Sunday’s conversion class was both fun and educational! We took one recipe for a baked good in its conventional form (using white sugar, white flour etc.) and changed one ingredient each time until the finished product was vegan and more health supportive . . . oh and tasted good too!
The Teams
Jessica & Melanie – Brownies
Lois & Christine – Peanut Butter Cookies
Samantha & David – Black & White Cookies
Amy & Ali – Carrot Cake
Denise & Val – Chocolate Chip Cookies
Led by . . .
Chef “flax eye” Elliott
Here’s how we cumulatively changed the conventional chocolate chip cookie to be vegan and have more health supportive ingredients . . .
1.) Make as is recipe.
2.) Change the flour – Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
3.) Change additives – Sunspire Chips
4.) Change sweetner – Coconut or Palm Sugar
5.) Change butter – Slightly solidified Coconut oil
6.) Change egg – Flax egg
Sounds easy, but in reality we were tweaking the recipe every time we made it right down to the tablespoon of flour. Each batch came out so different so we had to keep what worked and changed what didn’t without compromising flavor or texture.
It was an excellent exercise and really opened my eyes to the process of how to change a recipe to be more health supportive.
You could imagine how many baked goods were flying around after making the same recipe 6-8 times! I can honestly say that I didn’t eat a full cookie but since Denise couldn’t taste any until the very end because she is vegan, I had to make sure everything was ok 
Luckily, Chef Elliott made a pot of his famous miso soup to alkalize us from all the sugar.
Yum!
We still have much more baking to do in the future, so we could use about 10 more gallons of it!
Have you ever tried making a baked good (sweet or savory) to be more healthy? How’d it go?
