I was going to give this blog post a clever title, but I figured the name of the cookies was enticing enough. Who doesn’t love a little PB&C?
This week, I did another in-dorm experiment, but this time I raised the stakes. I used a vegan recipe! You would never know they were vegan if you tried one of these cookies; I’d offer you one if you don’t believe me, but they are undoubtedly going to be gone by the time this post hits Her Campus.
These cookies were an absolute hit; everyone was so surprised that they didn’t have any dairy products in them! Warning: vegan does not always translate to healthier or lower in calories. These are not “diet” cookies and if you eat a dozen of them, they will still go right to your hips. However, many of the ingredients are all-natural and good for you, so in moderation they’re a great snack choice!
What you’ve gotta have:
- 1 cup margarine
- 1 ¼ cups sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- ¼ cup unsweetened almond milk (any milk alternative works, but almond milk is my FAVORITE. It’s delicious with cereal and full of protein, give it a try!)
- 2 ¼ cups flour
- ½ cup cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup dark chocolate chips
What you’ve gotta do:
Without an electric mixer, I used my blender to make the cookie dough! This was great until the batter got too thick, so if you’re going to use a blender pay attention to my blender-specific notes! (I’m serious – my blender started smoking a little….) Preheat your oven to 350*F, and get ready to rumble.
Start by beating the margarine, sugar, and vanilla together. Once the mixture is completely mixed, add the almond milk and blend. Next, add the flour (about a half cup at a time). This is the point where your batter will start to get thick! If you’re using a mixing bowl and electric mixer, continue as you normally would. If you’re using a blender, now’s a good time to whip out a spoon or spatula and hand-mix. Once the flour is blended in, add the cocoa powder and baking soda. At this point, I realized I had about a ½ cup of peanut butter left, and figured what the heck! Now’s a good time to add peanut butter if you love it as much as I do. Finally, mix in the chocolate chips and your batter is ready to go.
Use about a spoonful of dough per cookie on an ungreased cookie sheet. Unless you have a convection bake oven, only put one cookie sheet in at a time so they bake evenly. The cookies should take between 10 and 15 minutes to bake. It’s harder to tell when cookies are done when they’re double chocolate because they don’t turn the same golden brown that regular chocolate chip cookies do. After about ten minutes, open up the oven and take a look!
Let the cookies cool for about 10 minutes before removing them – because they aren’t made with egg (which helps the batter to stick together), they will undoubtedly crumble if you try to remove them before they’ve cooled.
I found this recipe at food.com, but I modified the ingredients a little bit. The recipe called for molasses and salt, which I didn’t have (and forgot to buy at target), but it seems these weren’t huge losses anyway. It also called for soymilk, which I replaced with almond milk. Feel free to be flexible with the recipe like I was, it turned out wonderfully despite my experimenting!
Enjoy :)
Ashley