Since I was allowed to use the oven on my own, I prided myself on my favourite chocolate chip cookies. It was first a variation on the classic Tollhouse recipe (the one on the back of that famous yellow bag) that my mom had made when we were growing up. (However, she tweaked the recipe a bit too by increasing brown sugar and reducing regular sugar!)
When I started making them without her watchful eye, I decided I wanted them to be a bit fluffier, so I experimented with the amount of flour, butter temperature, baking powder vs soda etc. I used this chocolate chip cookie guide (shoutout to Handle the Heat blog) to help find my perfect ratio. Once I perfected it, I could make those babies in my sleep! I would make them after a night out still slightly drunk, hungover the next morning, in the middle of the day – basically any time! I became the “Sam I Am” of making cookies – on a train, on a boat, in a plane! When I went home to visit my dad I would even whip up three batches and freeze the dough (a-la slice and bake style) so all he had to do was pop them in the oven and have fresh cookies whenever he wanted.
When I moved to England, I learned that cookies had a very different meaning here: they are referred to as “biscuits” (not to be confused with fluffy, American southern biscuits), are hard and round and are the preferred dipper for the classic cup of English tea. This meant that my go-to cookies were not the go-to baked good of choice and I couldn’t find large bags of chocolate chips anywhere! Instead, they sell mini chocolate chips in small 200 gram packs in white, milk and dark (no such thing as semi-sweet chocoalte chips here!) so I had to buy two or three packs just to make a batch. I couldn’t find the perfect cookie scooper either so had to have my parents bring mine from home when they visited and I was finally able to start baking my perfect cookies again! Yippee!
Now that I have gone plant-based, I have had to further tweak my recipe using dark chocolate bars (cut into chunks), plant-based vegan butter and flaxseed and I finally nailed the best chocolate chip vegan cookie ever!
chocolate chip cookies
Ingredients
- 340 grams all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 flax egg 1 tablespoon flaxseed and 2 ½ tablespoons water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 215 grams vegan butter
- 146 grams light brown sugar packed
- 50 grams plain sugar
- 125 grams grams dark chocolate cut into chunks
- 60 grams walnut pieces
Instructions
- In a small bowl, mix together flaxseed and water and set aside to thicken.
- Chop dark chocolate bar into desirable size chunks for the cookie.
- Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a bowl and set aside.
- In another bowl, whisk the vegan butter with brown sugar and plain sugar until whipped and creamy.
- Add in vanilla and flax egg and until combined.
- Slowly mix in flour until just combined.
- Sprinkle in chocolate chunks and walnuts and mix until evenly distributed.
- Scoop about two tablespoons of dough for each cookie using a cookie scoop into a Tupperware container. Refrigerate the scoops of cookie dough for at least one hour or more.
- Preheat the oven to 185°C (365 degrees °F) and line a baking sheet with baking paper.
- Place the scoops of cookie dough onto the lined baking sheet with at least one inch between them.
- Bake the cookies for 13 minutes.
- Allow resting for two minutes on the pan before putting on a drying rack.
- Enjoy with your favourite non-dairy milk!
