Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is one of the best choc chip cookie recipes I’ve made. Perhaps the best? Sweet but no sickly sweet. Soft but not too crumbly. How many choc chips you add is up to you. I used vegan ingredients, except for the choc chips. I used light soy milk instead of water. About 8 minutes cooking time was good for me, anything less and the sugar is still too gritty. I ate a few to test this theory of course. Take your cookies out of the oven while they are still a little soft as they will firm up as they cool.

Here is an interesting article about sugar in relation to a vegan diet.

 The recipe is from VegWeb.com

 Recipe submitted by Denise

Happy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients (use vegan versions):

   
2 cups unbleached flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp.salt
cinnamon to taste (optional)
vegan chocolate or carob chips – put in as many as you like
1 cup raw sugar (turbinado #1, sucanat works too but sucks up a lot of the moisture)
1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup water

Directions:

VERY IMPORTANT-make sure all ingredients are at room temperature. It will work if they’re not at room temp but it works MUCH better if they are. Also while your oven is pre-heating put the cookie sheets you are going to use on top of the oven so they get preheated as well.  Preheat oven to 350.

In a large bowl mix flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon (if you choose). Add chips. Make a well in the center and set aside.

In a medium size bowl mix vegan sugar and oil. Mix it well.  Add the vanilla and then add the water. Mix it well.  Add the wet to the well in the dry. Mix it well but be careful not to overwork it.  Add more chips if you need to.  Spoon onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Put them in the oven.  Bake for 5 minutes and then flip and rotate the sheets.(top to bottom,and 180 degree rotation) Bake another 4 minutes and check them.

The cookies are done when they seem a little bit softer then you want them to be. They will harden up some as they cool. I usually go in two minute increments from here untill they get to where I like them.

Take them out when they are done and move them to wire cooling racks. If they split or come apart when you try to remove them let them sit on the pan for 2 minutes before transferring them to the racks.

These cookies have come a long way, lots of time and tasting spent on getting them to where they are now. Vegans and non vegans LOVE them. In the words of my 6 year old son-Mom, you’re the greatest because you know how to make the best cookies. Enjoy and let me know if you have questions. Sweet travels.

Serves: almost two dozen

Preparation time: 15 mins?-10 to 12 cooking time

Cupcake Courier Sale

These are reduced to $39.95AUS

Pea and Parmesan Soup

This is turning into the winter of soup in Katie’s Kitchen. I’ve never been a big fan of soup, but having said that I probably haven’t tried more than three or four varieties until now. I guess too many bowls of Campbell’s Tomato Soup when I was young turned me off the dish in general (sorry Andy).

This soup isn’t my favourite (not the biggest Parmesan fan) but it sure is flavourful and if you like Parmesan cheese you’ll love this. Don’t let the green colour put you off!

Thanks to my co-worker Karla for the recipe. I wonder where it is from originally?

Bake a bulb of garlic wrapped in foil for an hour. (Chop the top off first)
Cook a 500g bag of baby peas.
Put drained peas into blender. Add 25g butter, 25g grated Parmesan and 300ml stock. Squeeze garlic into mixture. Puree, warm and eat.

Flourless, Dairy-free, Almost-No-Added-Sugar Ookies

Hubby says these aren’t real cookies, so I’m calling them ookies. He eats them anyway!

The banana is the overriding taste in these ookies, almost a banana bread flavour. They aren’t real crispy on the outside, more soft and moist all over. Find the recipe here on a great blog called 101 Cookbooks. Thanks to my co-worker Eve for showing me the recipe.

Salmon and Vodka Pasta

I don’t drink, but love to cook my salmon in vodka! Just bake it in the oven for about 15 minutes in about 1/2 cup of vodka. Cook your fave pasta, adding frozen peas to the pot just before the pasta is al dente. Mix your pasta and salmon, add some low-fat ricotta and a splash of olive oil. Season with pepper as desired (I don’t add salt to anything) and voila!

Vegan Carrot Soup

No, I’m not “turning vegan”. Just exploring new ways of eating, cooking and maintaining a balanced diabetes-friendly diet. This soup recipe comes from a book my (vegan) friend Melissa lent (meat-eater) me. It’s simply and tasty. The “creamy” part is the soy milk. The jury is out for me on whether soy milk is good for you, bad for you or ok in moderation. There’s plenty of pros and cons to be found online. Just goggle “soy milk health”. For now I’ll stick to baking with soy milk sometimes and eating it with my oats occasionally.

The jist of the recipe is:

Chop 6-8 organic, unpeeled carrots and 1 onion.
Saute them in 2 tablespoons oil in large saucepan until onion is translucent.
Add 4 cups vegetables stock. Simmer 15 minutes.
Remove half the vegetable and some of the liquid, place in blender with 1 cup soy milk, 1 tablespoon soy sauce and 1 tablespoon chopped dill. Blend until smooth. Return mixture to saucepan.
Stir and serve.

 

 

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Loaf

This recipe comes from the cookbook of Baked bakery in Brooklyn. I can’t really fault the loaves (the recipe yields two), but I’m not in love. They are nicely spiced, moist and reminiscent of pumpkin pie. Despite the multiple cups of sugar in the recipe the slices weren’t overly sugary. According to the recipe the loaves freeze well so I’ll pop the second loaf in the freezer for a later date.

Next On The List

My co-worker Eve lent my this book from Baked in Brooklyn. Looking forward to trying a few recipes like pumpkin chocolate chip loaf.

New Cookbooks

These beauties are on their way to me from Amazon.

Vegan Coconut Cupcakes

I love coconut. I love these cupcakes. I want another! I found the recipe posted on a fashion message board, of all places. The recipe is by Bethenny Frankel. My version is almost 100% vegan. I used margarine (instead of vegan shortening) which does contain a small amount of dairy (listed as milk solids).

The recipe calls for vegan shortening. In Australia, a common type of vegetable shortening is Copha. That’s right, the stuff most of  us only ever use to make the childhood favourite chocolate crackles. Does anyone use Copha for anything else? I’d love to know! Copha is basically hydrogenated coconut oil. In other words, saturated fat galore.

*I used Meadow Lea margarine, which is made from vegetable oils — including canola oil — and a great deal less saturated fat. It’s not health food by any means, but I felt more comfortable baking with margarine over Copha. I’m sure butter would also work (but then it’s bye bye vegan!).
*I used plain wheat flour instead of oat flour.
*I couldn’t get coconut extract easily, so I settled for coconut essence. I wasn’t disappointed, the cake has a nice coconut flavour.
*I got about 11 cupcakes from the batter. Next time I may squeeze it out to 12.
*I halved the ingredients for the icing and still had enough to cover all of my cupcakes.

These cupcakes were very easy to make and took about 20 minutes to bake. Don’t expect the baked product to have the same consistency as cupcakes containing egg. I ate my cupcake while it was still a little warm.