I have wandered into dangerous territory, my friends. I have managed to veganise my favourite sweet treat from my childhood and I have already made them three times in three weeks. BUT this does mean that I have pretty much perfected the recipe and so really, I was simply sacrificing my time and waistline to assist you in making the perfect vegan cookies...
The original recipe, which is just as delicious, was concocted by my talented grandma and the only rule for this bake is that you have to credit her whenever you make them (so mind that you do!).
Ingredients:
Vegan spread (8 oz or 230 g)
Demerara sugar (6 oz or 170 g)
Vanilla (2 teaspoons)
Ground flaxseed OR whole chia seeds (2 tablespoons)
Self-raising flour (14 oz or 400 g)
Baking powder (1/2 a teaspoon)
Vegan chocolate, preferably half milk/dark and half white (7 oz or 200g)
Method
1. Get the ground flaxseed and put in a small bowl. If you have whole flaxseed, then grind it up as much as possible, using either a spice grinder, blender or a mortar and pestle (the latter is very hard work though, take it from me!). Add 4 tablespoons of water to the flaxseed in the small bowl and use a hand whisk to mix together - you will then see this become gelatinous and gloopy! This is your egg replacement (1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed + 2 tablespoons of water = 1 egg replacement). Pop this small bowl with the gloopy fake egg into the fridge to chill for a little bit. Alternatively, if using chia seeds, then 1 tablespoon of whole chia seeds + 3 tablespoons of water = 1 egg replacement. So for this recipe, 6 tablespoons of water is needed if using chia
2. Then get a big mixing bowl and cream together the vegan spread (I used Vitalite spread) with the demerara sugar and the vanilla until light and fluffy
3. Get the flaxseed 'egg' out of the fridge (it doesn't need to be that cold so don't worry if you're quick) or the chia seed 'egg' from the side and GRADUALLY add this into the creamy sugary mix
4. Then you can fold in the self-raising flour and the baking powder into the mix too! Don't worry if this takes a while, you've added a lot of flour so it does take some working to fold it in with the rest of the mix. It helps to get your hands mucky at this step, so wash them and start mixing until you end up with a beautiful big ball of cookie dough
5. At this point, I preheat the oven to 180 °C. Then it's time to add in the chocolate! You can either use chocolate chips or use bars of chocolate and break them up into smaller chunks. I found it quite difficult and expensive to find vegan chocolate chips so I just break up the Tesco's Free From Kitchen Co. milk and white chocolate bars (1 of each) and chuck those in instead! I love the combo of two types of chocolate in my cookies
5. Then roll the dough into balls that are about the size of a golf ball. Pop these onto a baking tray with baking parchment on and make sure they're fairly spaced out so they don't just meld into a mega cookie (although they'll still taste fantastic if they do!). You can then gently flatten your cookie balls with the palm of your hand but don't make them too thin. The fluffy middles taste amazing if they're quite thick
6. You then just pop your trays in the oven for 19 minutes. If the cookies still look pale, don't be fooled! They might look pasty and soft when you take them out of the oven, but they're just right once they've cooled down. At this point, I take a spatula and push any leaking white vegan chocolate back into the cookie so you don't have any crystallised bits once cool. Leave them in their tray for about 5 minutes and then transfer them onto a cooling rack to carry on cooling. And, of course, sample one after 10 minutes of cooling when they're still slightly warm
7. Enjoy your cookies and let me know how they taste!
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