Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough September 4, 2021, recipe adapted from Cookie Madness

8 ounces (16 tablespoons) vegan butter (I used Miyoko's)

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

6 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 tablespoon egg replacer plus 2 tablespoons water 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups vegan chocolate chips

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the vegan butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until combined and creamy. 
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg replacer and water. Let sit for a few minutes until thickened before adding to the butter-sugar mixture. Mix in until combined. Add vanilla extract and mix to combine.
3. Add flour, baking soda and salt, mixing just until combined. Fold in vegan chocolate chips.
4. Portion dough into dough balls and flatten slightly. Cover and chill or freeze for several hours or overnight.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space dough balls. Bake 10-12 minutes or until edges are set and middles no longer look raw. Remove from oven and let cookies rest on baking sheets for several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely. 

Made 22 (small-ish) cookies 

I am new to the world of vegan baking. I have the privilege and luxury of not having any food allergies so I've never had to really substitute anything for typical ingredients that contain dairy or gluten. But thanks to my niece watching her dairy intake, I got my first introduction to baking with vegan butter a couple of months ago.

It was a mostly dairy-free adaptation to Cookie Madness' Crumbl copycat recipe, with the "mostly" being due to my using milk chocolate chips and semisweet chocolate chips, which contain milk. I decided to try going all-out vegan, not just by using vegan chocolate chips from Enjoy Life but also using Bob's Red Mill Egg Replacer, to see what it would be like.

One of the reasons I've been hesitant to stray from my dairy and non-vegan recipes is the investment in more specialty ingredients that I thought might be hard to find. Turns out, they're more widely available than I expected, probably thanks to the increasing number of vegans and the demand for vegan products. I bought the Miyoko's vegan butter from Trader Joe's and the vegan chocolate chips and egg replacer at Target. 

One thing I've learned from my limited experience of baking with vegan butter is it doesn't add as much moisture to cookie dough as dairy butter does. So I modified the original recipe from Cookie Madness to increase the vegan butter by 1 tablespoon to use the full cup of vegan butter that it's sold as. That definitely helped with the consistency of the dough. 

As did the egg replacer which added the same amount of moisture as a large egg. I also increased the vanilla extract to a full teaspoon.

This turned out really well. It didn't brown as much as a non-vegan version of the cookie and didn't quite have the same brown sugar caramelization but the edges were still crisp and the middle was chewy and moist. To be honest, in a blind taste test, I'm not sure I could've told you this was vegan. But it is.

So if you're looking for a vegan version of a good chocolate chip cookie, give this one a try. It turned out better than I expected.