"Possibly Perfect" Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

By: Vella

Ingredients

This recipe makes 12 cookies by default. You can double this recipe, but any cool or freeze times should also double. Make separate batches if you need to go bigger than doubling.

  • 1 stick (116g) of unsalted vegan “butter” (any dairy free margarine works)
  • 1/2 cup (165g) of brown sugar (I like to mix dark and light)
  • 1/4 cup (60g) of white sugar
  • 3 tbsp (40g) of aquafaba from a can of chickpeas
  • 2 tsp (6g) of vanilla
  • 1/2 tsp (2g) of baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp (2g) of baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp (2g) of flaky, kosher salt
  • 1 and 1/3 cup (200g) of all purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup (~55g) of vegan, semi-sweet chocolate chips (any chocolate chips with no dairy)
  • 1/3 c (~45g) of vegan 70% dark chocolate bar chopped roughly into chunks (any 70% dark chocolate with no dairy)
  • Flaky, kosher salt to garnish to taste

Instructions

This recipe requires a lot of attention to the specific techniques used in order to get cookies to maintain the same structure, texture, and look. Pay attention to each section and step in full, or else your cookies might not turn out the same.

Creating caramel

No, we’re not really creating caramel, but we are melting the “butter” and sugars together to create a sticky start. This kind of mimics browning dairy butter.

  1. In a sauce pan (preferrably non-stick), melt the “butter” over low-medium heat. Stir continuously until just bubbling. If it starts foaming, you may have the heat too high.
  2. Add in both sugars and stir continuously. Do not stop stirring or walk away, as you do not want your sugar to burn. Slightly melt the sugars into the “butter” by keeping it on the low-medium heat. Melt for 3-5 minutes. The sugar will not be fully melted (it will be a liquid but still have a grainy texture) and the butter will probably not be fully incorporated. This mixture will resemble a sauce.
  3. Pour this mixture into a mixing bowl and let it cool in the fridge for at least 10 minutes. This is a good time to pre-measure out all of your other ingredients. This mixture may not be cold or solid at the end of 10 minutes. That’s okay. Definitely don’t freeze it though.

Mixing everything together

This part is very simple. Just mix 🙂

  1. Add the aquafaba that you saved from making a super quick hummus recipe. If your sugars and “butter” weren’t fully incorporated, this should help. Mix.
  2. Add your vanilla but DON’T MIX YET. Instead, aim the baking powder, baking soda, and salt into the little vanilla puddle and then mix first. This helps the baking soda to begin activating. I like to add these four ingredients into a shot glass first, mix, and then add into my main mixing bowl. Mix.
  3. Add your flour and chocolate all at the same time, and then begin to fold in. Combine these ingredients just until there are no more flour streaks. Do not over mix. The more you mix, the more gluten you create with the flour, and we do not want these cookies to be glutenous.
  4. Now it’s time to freeze. Scoop out 12 cookie piles (the dough is too soft to really form a dough ball) onto a cookie sheet or plate and place in the freezer for a minimum of 20 minutes. The longer these cookies are in the freezer, the more their flavors will mingle. I wouldn’t keep them in the freezer for longer than 48 hours without proper storage.

Baking

This recipe can be scaled up or down based on how big you make your dough balls, but that changes the bake time. (Scaling isn’t the same as doubling. I just mean you can make a few big cookies or many small cookies with the same amount of dough.) A table of bake times will be at the bottom of these instructions.

  1. Pre-heat oven to 350° F.
  2. Remove your frozen dough from the freezer once the oven is preheated, and mold into spheres. The shape is important so you get beautiful, perfectly round cookies.
  3. Arrange up to 6 dough balls on a parchment paper covered baking sheet. You want to maintain proper space around the cookies.
  4. Bake for 14-16 minutes depending on your oven. I prefer 16 minutes.
  5. Pull your cookies out of the oven and BANG them against a counter or the stovetop one to three times. (Careful if your stovetop is made of glass.) This deflates the cookies so they look flat and wrinkly. Cookies will continue to deflate as they cool.
  6. Immediately add flaky, kosher salt to the top of each cookie. Add as according to your taste. This step can be skipped altogether.
  7. Let your cookies rest on the hot baking sheet for two minutes, then transfer to a wire cooling rack to finish cooling. Cookies can be stored in an air-tight container for up to 4 days. After 4 days they become kind of stale.
 
Enjoy!
Number of dough balls Bake time at 350° F
816-18 minutes
1214-16 minutes
1612-14 minutes

Thanks for reading!

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