Food You Can Eat: Vegan chocolate chip cookies (edible cookie dough!)

Wait wait, don’t leave! I know vegan recipes can be controversial with all the carnivores around here, but making these cookies without eggs carries the bonus of making them much safer to eat raw! And I don’t know about you guys, but sometimes I want cookie dough more than I want cookies. This recipe is delicious both raw and cooked, so it’s now the main cookie recipe I find myself making. I went through a few different recipe iterations, and many were not texturally where I wanted them. These ones are great (close to the recipe from Okonomi Kitchen), and based on the small sample size of people I’ve tested them on, don’t taste vegan. 

You may notice I said “safer” to eat raw, not “safe”. The fact is that raw flour does carry a minor risk of E. coli and salmonella. I imagine most of us don’t take that risk very seriously, but it is there. If you’re concerned, you can buy heat treated flour online, or you can heat treat it yourself in the microwave – work in 30 second intervals, stirring after each, until you can get a reading of 165F on a thermometer stuck in the middle. Online sources say this should take about 1.5min, but the one time I tried it out, I think it took me more like 4min.

• ½ cup white sugar
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ½ cup coconut oil or butter*, room temperature (If you don’t care to make it vegan, butter does taste better. I usually split the difference – half and half – to go easier on my husband’s lactose intolerant system.)
• 3 tbsp aquafaba (If you’re not familiar, aquafaba is the brine from a can of chickpeas, and it’s a great egg substitute because it holds air and helps fluff things up. And no, these cookies will not taste like chickpeas.)
• 3 tbsp coconut milk (If you’re not a person who goes through a lot of coconut milk, and don’t want to open a can for 3 tbsp, you can instead sub more aquafaba. The result will be a slightly chewier cookie, not quite as tender.)
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 270g (~2 cup) all purpose flour (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – get a kitchen scale and measure flour by weight! Volume measurements are so imprecise for flour.)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 cup chocolate chips/chunks

Start by creaming the butter/oil and sugars. This brings air to the party. To accomplish this properly, you want the butter to be 65F, or about room temperature. If your butter is too cold, you’re going to have trouble mixing it. If it’s too hot, it’s not going to hold air properly. The best way is to leave your butter out for an hour before starting. If you need a shortcut, it’s best not to microwave it, but one tip is to microwave a bowl of water for a couple of minutes, then remove the bowl and let the butter sit in the warmed microwave for a few. If you’re using coconut oil, it doesn’t work exactly the same, but you can still somewhat cream it. It won’t be quite as light and fluffy, but you can still get some air in. You do need your coconut oil slightly softened but not melted, which will already be the case if it’s a warm day, but otherwise use the same warmed microwave tip. Go easy, coconut oil melts at 78F!

I will also add that while creaming works best with an electric mixer, you can do it by hand (and I have). Basically, start mixing with a wooden spoon or spatula until incorporated, then start whisking, and keep going past the point where your arm wants to give out. 

Once the butter and sugar are getting fluffy, add your aquafaba and coconut milk – these are your fake egg. The aquafaba needs some whipping action too, so mix all that for another minute. Throw in the vanilla.

Mix flour, baking soda, and salt. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet with a spatula or wooden spoon, trying not to over-mix and lose all the air you just whipped in. Mix until almost fully uniform, then add your chips and finish mixing the batter. Cover the bowl and chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes. After chilling the dough for a bit, roll it up into balls.

Bake however many you like at 350F for 10-13 minutes. After pulling the tray out of the oven, let them remain to cool (and finish baking) on the tray for 5 minutes.

I often making some and eating some raw. I don’t know how long you can keep it in the fridge, but I often keep it in the fridge for about 3-4 days before throwing anything that’s left into the freezer for longer term storage, ready to eat or bake at a moment’s notice.