Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hello (for the second time today!),

It's Sunday, and clearly I have too little to do, because I'm doing more baking! Chocolate chip cookies are on the agenda today, because I'm yet to find a vegan shop bought cookie which satisfies me.

The original recipe can be found here.

Ingredients 

• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup sunflower oil (or any flavourless vegetable oil)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/4 cup water

This is enough to make around 10 medium-large cookies. It would be really easy to double up the recipe if you want more (I would recommend it if you intend to share, they won't last long!).

The Method

1. Mix your dry ingredients excluding the sugar in a bowl. Make a well in the centre.



2. In a separate bowl or jug, mix the sugar with the wet ingredients



3. Pour the wet ingredients into the well in the dry ingredients, and combine thoroughly (but don't overwork it or the gluten will break down in the flour, and this will make the batter a bit bread-like!).



4. Take a tablespoon of batter at a time, and put blobs onto a lined baking sheet (no greasing necessary).
5. Bake in a pre-heated oven at Gas Mark 4 for 9 - 15 mins (all ovens are different, but mine took about 11 mins).

The Result

These cookies look quite pale, but I prefer a nice chewy cookie, so I took them out quite early. If you like a tougher, more biscuit-like cookie, you could leave them in a little longer (but not much longer!). Be warned - when the cookies cool, they will harden considerably, so make sure they are soft when they come out of the oven. you may think they are undercooked, but trust me, they will toughen up.
I think these would be really easy to adapt. For example, you could substitute some or all of the chocolate chips with chopped nuts or sultanas. You could also try adding citrus peel, or some cocoa powder to make these double chocolate chip cookies (how exciting!). If you do give that a go, let me know how it works out!

Yours,
Callum