Category: Vegan Cookies

by betsy

Vegan Toasted Coconut and Chocolate Chunk Cookies (coconut oil is the secret to THE BEST chocolate chip cookies ever!)

Toasted Coconut-Chocolate Chunk CookiesYield: approximately 3 dozen cookies

In my go to chocolate chip cookies, I like a blend of vegan butter and vegetable shortening for the best of both worlds.  Craving cookies, but with no shortening, I decided to substitute coconut oil (solid at room temperature) and oh, boy, those of us who haven’t been baking cookies with coconut oil have been missing out!  The resulting cookie has the most delectable crispy-crumbly-tender texture imaginable, but they don’t fall apart, no sirree!  They are perfection in every way.

The coconut oil imparts to the cookies a very subtle hint of coconut flavor, that will make coconut lovers swoon; but not so much that the coconut averse would object.  However, we love coconut in this house, so I decided to add some toasted coconut instead of nuts and the result was addicting and just as comforting as old-style chocolate chip cookies.  However, feel free to load them up with the chips, nuts, and dried fruit of your choice.

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup coconut oil

1 1/2 cups demerara sugar (or lightly packed light brown sugar)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspooons baking soda

1/8 teaspoon sea salt

1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (I use white whole wheat)

10 ounces vegan dark chocolate chunks or chips (most organic brands are vegan; check the label)

1 1/2 cups lightly toasted coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheets with silicon mats or parchment paper.  With an electric mixer, beat together butter and coconut oil until creamy.  Add sugar and continue beating until fluffy, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary.  (Note: if using dmerara sugar, because of the larger crystals, they will not dissolve completely.)  Add baking powder, soda, sea salt and one-third of flour, mixing on low speed just until combined.  Add remaining flour in two parts, continuing to mix on low speed, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary.  Add chocolate chunks and coconut and mix just until combined.  Drop by generous rounded tablespoons onto baking sheets, using dampened fingers to gently flatten the tops of the cookies.  Bake 9 to 11 minutes, rotating pans after 5.  Cool pans on wire racks.

 

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by betsy

Vegan Cherry Chocolate Cashew Balls

Almost Two BallsYield: 2 dozen cookies

The only thing better than a moist chocolate cookie is one with a hint of cherry flavor, a juicy maraschino cherry tucked inside, and a buttery cashew on top.

Quite deceiving in appearance, the exterior of these cookies keeps a secret of the bright red maraschino cherry surprise hidden within.

Simple to prepare but quite fancy in appearance, these cookies are equally at home in school lunch boxes or on cocktail party trays.

Sunday night, I served them to our dear friends and houseguests, Juliane and Marc Curvin.  Health conscious, like me, we eacg enjoyed one cookie perched in a stainless steel Chinese spoon, all lined up on a long and narrow contemporary white rectangular plate.  Neither they nor my husband are vegans or even vegetarians, but all thought these treats were the perfect 1- or 2-bite sweet ending.

8 ounces vegan chocolate chips, melted

1/2 cup vegan butter

1 cup turbinado sugar (or any granulated sugar)

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons maraschino cherry juice

1/4 cup cherry liqueur (or substitute 1/4 cup maraschino cherry juice)

2 tablespoons non-dairy creamer or non-dairy milk

2 cups white whole wheat flour (or unbleached all-purpose)

Pinch sea salt

24 maraschino cherries, drained

approximately 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar

24 lightly salted and roasted cashew halves

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with Silpat.  In a medium bowl, melt chocolate in microwave or over simmering water.  Remove from heat and stir in butter until it melts.  Add sugar, vanilla, cherry juice, cherry liqueur, and non-dairy creamer and whisk to combine.  Whisk in half of flour and then incorporate remaining flour using a fork.  Dough will be somewhat stiff.  Using a small scoop, form a ball of dough.  Using your thumb, create a depression in the center and place a maraschino cherry inside.  Press dough around it to completely encase and gently reashape into a ball.  Roll in powdered sugar and place on prepared baking sheet.  Place a cashew half on the top pressing down ever so slightly to adhere.  Repeat with remaining dough, cherries, confectioner’s sugar, and cashew halves, placing balls about 2 inches apart.  Bake 12 minutes.  Let cool slightly on baking sheet and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.  Dust with additional confectioner’s sugar before serving.

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by betsy

Vegan Maple-Molasses Roll-and-Cut Sugar-free Sugar Cookies with Sugar-free “Frosting”

Sugar-Free Maple Molassess Roll and Cut CookiesOne of my favorite yoga instructors, Angela Phillips, avoids sugar.  Feeling spring in the air and having recently purchased cute little flower-shaped cookie cutters, I wanted to take her a  “happy” to class this morning.  So, I searched online for some sugar-free roll-and-cut cookies made with maple-syrup and/or molasses, but didn’t find what I was looking for, so I had to wing it which, honestly, is more fun anyway.

Knowing that granulated sugar aerates (vegan) butter as you beat it together, I figured that the absence of sugar might make for a heavier cookie.  So, I incorporated a couple of tablespoons of cornstarch to lighten the dough–lovely!  A bit of baking soda provided extra insurance that the texture would be perfect.  Other than that, I found that 2 tablespoons of molasses to 6 tablespoons of maple syrup was an ideal proportion to prevent the molasses from hogging the limelight.  And that a little vanilla and almond extracts rounded out the flavor.  In winter months, you can spice these cookies up with cinnamon, cloves, ground ginger, and so forth.  But, for April, I didn’t really want those warm spices and the cookies are delicious without.

Feeling very proud of myself, as I got ready to decorate them, I suddenly realized that the only frostings I know how to make are made with sugar, most frequently, confectioner’s sugar.  Wracking my brain, I ultimately decided on whipped (vegan) cream cheese sweetened with a little maple syrup and flavored with a little vanilla and almond extracts plus lemon zest was perfect.  Sort of like cream cheese on a bagel.  And the consistency still allowed me to use my piping bag for an extra-pretty touch.  

Enjoy these sugar-free beauties all year…starting now!

Cookies:

1 cup vegan butter

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons maple syrup

2 tablespoons unsulphered molasses

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

2 tablespoons cornstarch

2 teaspoons baking soda

Pinch salt

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (I actually prefer white whole wheat)

Optional: ground spices like cinnamon, cloves, ginger

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or Silpat.  Using an electric mixer, cream butter until fluffy.  Add maple syrup, molasses, and vanilla and almond extracts, and continue creaming until thoroughly incorporated.  Add cornstarch, baking soda, a pinch of salt and 1 cup of flour and incorporate on lowest speed of mixer or by hand.  Add remaining flour (and spices if using any), 1 cup at a time.  Flour work surface and, using about one-quarter of dough at a time, roll to a 1/4 to 1/3-inch thickness.  Cut out with cookie cutters, arrange on prepared cookie sheets, and bake for 10 minutes.  Cool completely on wire racks and frost as desired.  If using the cream cheese “frosting” below, store frosting cookies covered in refrigerator.  I like to store them in a shallow container so that the plastic wrap doesn’t smear the frosting.

Sugar-Free “Frosting”

8 ounces vegan cream cheese

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon almond extract

Zest of 1 lemon

Optional: Food coloring/dye if desired, natural preferred and dragees

Using an electric mixer, cream all ingredients together until fluffy and pipe onto cookies as desired.  Cover and refrigerate any leftover frosting.

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by betsy

Vegan Lemon Verbena Shortbread Sandwich Cookies with Vegan Lemon Curd Filling

Lemon Verbena Shortbread Sandwich Cookies with Lemon Curd Filling 1These Lemon Verbena Shortbread Sandwich Cookies with Vegan Lemon Curd Filling were quite a hit, with men and women alike, at a recent potluck garden party.  A buzz spread through the party as one guest tried them and passed the word.  I happily took home an empty platter!

The cookies are simple, but very special in appearance and flavor.  The shortbread recipe is from my Blooming Platter Cookbook (copyright© 2011, Vegan Heritage Press; used by permission).  And the ingenious Vegan Lemon Curd is from my friend and fellow vegan cookbook author/blogger, Bryanna Clark Grogan.  The secret ingredient that replaces the eggs in the curd is, believe it or not, the lowly parsnip!  You won’t believe how perfectly parsnips make this curd mimic its dairy cousin.  (The lemon verbena leaves fleck the cookies with green, so if you prefer a matching green filling, Bryanna’s recipe easily adapts to lime curd for a lemon-lime version of this sandwich cookie.)

If you don’t have lemon verbena growing in our garden, you should!  But if it isn’t available, you can substitute lemon zest, I’m just not sure how much, but I would start with the zest of one large lemon and taste.  Remember, vegan cookies contain no eggs, so taste away.  You can also substitute fresh lemon juice for the water for a zippier cookie.  However, nothing quite duplicates the earthy, herby, citrusy goodness of lemon verbena.

Thanks to One Green Planet for publishing my Lemon Verbena Shortbread Sandwich Cookies with Vegan Lemon Curd Filling!

 

 

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by betsy

Vegan Chocolate Wafer Cookies Filled with Fresh Raspberry-Champagne Buttercream Frosting

Yield: approximately 2 dozen 1 3/4-inch wafers

This Raspberry-Champagne Buttercream Frosting is about the best thing, well, since sliced cookies.  Seriously, it had omnivores requesting the recipe and laying the compliments on thick!

It is as delicious on vanilla cupcakes–heck, it’s delicious on the end of your finger!–and it is in these not-too-sweet chocolate wafers, with their perfect balance of crispness and tenderness.

Coincidentally, while looking for commercial chocolate wafers to encase this buttercream (remember “Famous” brand?), I noticed that Oreos now come filled with a berry cream.  If the combination is good enough for Oreos, it’s definitely good enough for me!  And by the way, this recipe for homemade wafers is very close to what I remember of the taste and texture of Famous wafers, though a tad thicker.

The Chocolate Wafer Cookies are adapted from Alice Medrich’s Pure Dessert by SmittenKitchen.com and veganized by me (just a matter of substituting vegan butter for butter and soymilk for whole milk).  The frosting is The Blooming Platter all the way!

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour or white whole wheat flour (I always use the latter)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) vegan butter, slightly softened
3 tablespoons soymilk (plain or unsweetened)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 recipe Fresh Raspberry-Champagne Buttercream Frosing

Combine the flour, cocoa, sugar, salt, and baking soda in the bowl of food processor and pulse several times to mix thoroughly. Cut the butter into about 12 chunks and add them to the bowl. Pulse several times. Combine the soymilk and vanilla in a small cup. With the processor running, add the milk mixture and continue to process until the mixture clumps around the blade or the sides of the bowl. Transfer the dough to a large bowl or a cutting board and knead a few times to make sure it is evenly blended.

Form the dough into a log about 14 inches long and 1 3/4 inches in diameter. Wrap the log in wax paper or foil and refrigerate until firm, at least one hour, or until needed.

Position the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Line the baking sheets with parchment paper. Cut the log of dough into slices a scant 1/4-inch thick, on a slight bias if you choose, and place them one inch apart on the lined sheets (cookies will spread just a little). Bake, rotating the baking sheet from top to bottom and back to front about halfway through baking, for a total of 12 to 15 minutes. The cookies will puff up and deflate; they are done about 1 1/2 minutes after they deflate.

Cool the cookies on the baking sheets on racks, or slide the parchment onto racks to cool completely. These cookies may be stored in an airtight container for up to two weeks or be frozen for up to two months.

Note: These cookies should crisp as they cool. If they don’t, you’re not baking them long enough, says Medrich — in which case, return them to the oven to reheat and bake a little longer, then cool again.

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by betsy

Vegan Chambord-Spiked Fudgy Hazelnut Thumbprint Cookies with Coconut-Espresso Buttercream Frosting

Yield: 1 1/2 dozen cookies (easily doubles)

Everyone loved my Vegan Mini Kahlua-Spiked Chocolate-Almond Cupcakes with Coconut-Espresso Buttercream Frosting.  And, since I had frosting left over from my testing session, I thought it might be perfect in a decadent fudgy thumbprint cookie.  Since I also had hazelnuts and Chambord on hand, they became Chambord-Spiked Fudgy Hazelnut Thumbprint Cookies. 

These were devoured by my non-vegan husband!

1/4 cup melted vegan butter (I like Earth Balance)

1/4 cup canola oil

2 tablespoons chocolate almond milk (chocolate soymilk would be tasty too)

2 teaspoons Chambord (or your favorite raspberry flavored liqueur)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract (that sounds like a lot, but it was just right to my palate)

1 cup natural sugar (this also sounds like alot, but I tried it first with 1/2 cup and it just wasn’t enough; you could reduce to 2/3-3/4 cup if you are concerned about your sugar intake)

1 cup white whole wheat flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

generous pinch sea salt (you may use table salt if you prefer)

1/2 cup finely chopped hazelnuts (if the nuts are too large, when you press your thumb into the dough balls, you will break them up)

Coconut-Espresso Buttercream Frosting

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Combine wet ingredients (first six ingredients) in a medium bowl.  Combine dry ingredients in a separate medium size bowl.  Make a depression in the center, pour in wet ingredients and stir until well combined.  Dough will be stiff.  Line a baking sheet with Silpat or parchment paper.  Using s small scoop, place mounds of cookie 2 inches apart in rows.  Press your thumb into the center of each cookie to create a little depression.  Bake 10 minutes.  Remove the baking sheet to a wire rack and,when cookies are cool enough to handle, press your thumb again into the depression to define it a little more and make plenty of room for lots of frosting!  Let the cookies cool completely on the cookie sheet, as they will break apart if you try to move them while warm.  Fill the depression with  frosting by simply spooning it in or piping it  if you prefer a fancier presentation.  Store cookies in an airtight container in the refrigerator.  Note: avoid using all vegan butter in place of the butter-oil mixture, as the cookies will spread too much.

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by betsy

Vegan Dog Bone Sugar Cookies…for Humans

Yield:  approximately 25 cookies

Yesterday  morning, a TV crew from WVEC Channel 13 came to our house to interview “Team Huff”:  all of the good folks, including our Great Dane, Huff, responsible for “Man’s Best Friend” becoming a Top Five Finalist in the “Doritos Crash the Superbowl” commercial competition!  (Click on the link to watch the commercial, the blooper ad reel, see the Huff Pics of the Day and VOTE to put them in a Top Two slot which will mean the commercial will be aired on the Superbowl!)

I wanted to serve everyone a little something, though I knew no one would want food stuck in their teeth on camera.  My pal and vegan cookbook author extraordinaire, Bryanna Clark Grogran, recommended sugar cookies in the shape of dog bones.  Perfect!

Since my Blooming Platter Cookbook focuses on seasonal ingredients, there are no plain sugar cookies in it.  However, I have a vegan sugar cookie recipe that is very good, but calls for vegan cream cheese.  That’s not a problem except that I had little time and wanted something as streamlined as possible.  An online search turned up a recipe from The Decorated Cookie blog.  It was terrific and I recommend it highly!  Just click on the link for the easy and tasty recipe.  I wanted my cookies to suggest dog treats so I didn’t ice them, but the frosting recipe looks like a winner too.

Here’s a quick helpful tip: I was completely out of powdered sugar.  I knew a substitution could be made from granulated sugar and cornstarch so I searched on line for the proportions.  Finding two different ones, I split the difference, using 1 cup natural sugar to 2 teaspoons of cornstarch.  I simply blended the mixture it in the blender to make a find powder.  (The directions I read said that a food processor wouldn’t work, so I didn’t experiment.)  The result was just right.  Be sure to scrape down the sides and blend a few times or granulated sugar will remain at the bottom of the blender.

As it turned out, everyone was too busy to eat while the taping transpired, but our guests were happy to take doggy bags of cookies with them.

Many thanks to The Decorated Cookie!

 

 

 

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by betsy

Trader Joe’s Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s are Vegan!
but not the gluten-free version

(Please note that the new 2017 gluten-free version of these cookies, in a different color box, contains egg white powder.)

Yesterday afternoon, I had just left the farmer’s market with a bag full of super-healthy produce, and needed to stop by Trader Joe’s for a few remaining items on my list.  But, though, my grocery bag was looking very virtuous, I was thinking impure sugar-laden thoughts.

I prefer homemade cookies any day of the week, but I was jonesin’ pretty badly for something sweet on the fly.  We had just come from a Friday night stay at the rustic-elegant Sanderling Inn in Duck, North Carolina, which serves tea and homemade cookies in the afternoon.  How I would have loved some cookies with my tea after our 4-mile walk on Friday, but alas, they were off-limits.  So, I came home with cookies on my mind.

Therefore, at TJ’s, I detoured down the cookie aisle in search of something sweet and vegan.  I must have picked up every box on that aisle to read the list of ingredients only to be met with whey, milk powder, eggs, butter, and all the rest of it.  Finally, I picked up the least likely looking box and–Eureka!–all vegan.  It turns out that Trader Joe’s brand of Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s in their cheery holiday-striped box are vegan approved!

Think Oreo’s, but with a peppermint filling.  So, while you probably won’t want to serve these at your next party, you might want to tuck a couple into you or your child’s lunchbox, or serve up a little quasi-guilty pleasure at a party-for-one when nobody’s looking.

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