Vegan Comfort Cookies

Every Baby Reflexology or Infant Massage course I bake up some goodies for the mama’s to munch on and invariably chocolate chip cookies are on the menu. I confess I have a major sweet tooth … one that is uncontrollable at times …. however since becoming a vegan it often means I just watch others enjoy good cookie.

Finally some cookies we can enjoy without having to buy them

I have tried some recipes that I have found online (like this vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe I tried a couple of years ago) but many of them involve weird and wonderful ingredients or lots of prep. So after much thought I have created a recipe to put things right in the world … for these vegans anyway 🙂 This one is fairly minimal prep, uses things I have in the cupboard and is gluten free and sugar free (depending on the chocolate you use). Both the vegans in the house think they are delicious. The non-vegan have other thoughts, probably due to them being a softer chewy biscuit than the regualar crunch, so maybe worth trying before you go offering them at your next afternoon tea!

It does involve a bit of time in prep but not a huge amount; the soaking of the dates, preparing the chia seeds and the chopping of chocolate and the main ones. I have tried the recipe now with three different types of vegan chocolate all with similar results. I used eating chocolate, both sugar laden and sugar free, though with the sugar free one I had a slight after taste from the stevia sweeter. Himself actually preferred these so I guess it is just personal preference. I see that Sweet William has a baking chocolate, sugar laden, which may give an even better results if I was able to source it here.

So here it is for you to try at home. I’d love to hear your feedback, especially if you have ways of improving them 🙂

1 1/8 C Gluten Free Flour (I use Edmonds)

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 C Coconut oil

2 TB chia seeds

2 TB boiling water

1/2 C dates

1/4 C boiling water

1 tsp vanilla essence

3/4 C chocolate bits (for sugar free I use Sweet William or Loving Earth, or for minimum sugar I use Whittakers Dark Ghana)

• Preheat the oven to 200C
• Prepare a date paste with the 1/2 C dates and 1/4 boiling water. Combine & leave to sit for a bit before mashing together
• Prepare a vegan egg using the chia seeds and 2 Tbs boiling water mixed together
• Melt the coconut oil
• Blend oil, chia seeds, dates and vanilla essences together until completely blended.
• Add the flour and baking soda
• Add in the chocolate bits
• Create small balls and place on the baking tray. Flatten a little with a fork
• Bake for 10 mins and then leave to cool completely on a cooling rack.
• ENJOY!!

Hope this finds you happy, healthy, warm and dry!

Arohanui

Y

www.becominghealthy.co.nz

Chocolate chips cookie vegan style

After a very wet trip to Kāpiti island today it was onto baking up a storm for week two of my Infant Massage course and enjoy the warmth of the oven as soon as we got back.  I traditionally make chocolate chip cookies for our morning tea kai this week, if there are no allergies in the group that is.  However as the first batch came out of the oven and herself (the official tester of all things non-vegan) had a taste we realised that I had used dark chocolate that was a bit too dark; that is too bitter for the sweet cookies I was aiming for.

Kaka checking us out over on Kāpiti Island

So ……  I thought I would make a batch of another delicious chocolate chip cookies we have the recipe for and best of all himself and I could give them the taste test!  I found this little gem of a recipe thanks to Jordan Rondel and her post in a magazine within the NZ Herald.  I have only changed a few things from the original recipe due to my usual reasons; lack of ingredients, buslife, ease of baking and most importantly  …… pleasing all the different eating styles on this here bus. 🙂

Warm out of the oven

Aside from pre-steaming of the pumpkin for mashing, then allowing it to cool, this is a really quick and easy recipe.  Those of you with pumpkin puree on your supermarket shelves may have an even quicker time of it 🙂  With himself being refined sugar free most of the time I also replaced the regular dark chocolate with some sugar free chocolate that we can get easily. It doesn’t really change the taste and of course you can always put in your favourite kind.  One of the things I really love about this recipe though is the fact that you can eat it raw or cooked. Hope it becomes one of your healthy (well mostly healthy) favourites too.

Vegan style chocolate chip cookies

• 110gm of mashed pumpkin (I just steam some then mash)
• 250gm ground almonds
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 75 gm maple syrup
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 80 gm broken up dark chocolate (I use Well Naturally so that himself can eat it)

-Mash the pumpkin and allow it to cool fully.

-Mix in all other ingredients except the chocolate.

-Add chocolate bits and mix well.

-Roll into small balls and place on a baking tray then flatten slightly with a fork (you may need to dip the fork in some GF flour to stop the sticking.

-Bake for 10-15 mins or until golden at 160C

-Enjoy!

Hope this find you warm and dry, enjoying the little comforts of life.

Arohanui

Y

www.becominghealthy.co.nz