Super Yummy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hey everyone! This is Aaron writing this one. We figured that I should be the one to share this recipe being that I'm the one doing the baking. Yes it's true, I used totally dislike baking. I love cooking, but baking always intimidated me. Most likely because I was always watching Jenny bake, and she is really really good at. But sorta recently I got over my fear and started baking things whenever I got the chance. I really like the idea of Vegan Baking. It's really not all that different from traditional baking, but I love all of the creative substitutions that are used in vegan recipes. Namely, the "flax egg". To make a "flax egg" you just combine a certain amount of flax meal with a certain amount of water…whisk together, and let it sit until it thickens. This will take the place of an egg in most recipes. I know it's a simple concept, but it still impresses me (I'm a cheap date). And there is another big bonus to vegan baking…you can ALWAYS lick the batter bowl…never ever a chance of salmonella from raw eggs. :) Anyway, we had a very flavorful dinner the other night and we needed to finish the evening with some chocolate. I found this awesome recipe for Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies, and within minutes I had the ingredients prepped and was popping the dough in the oven. There are lots of vegan chocolate chip cookie recipes out there, but Jenny and I can totally vouch for these. They're really really good, and they stay soft and moist. Lots of other chocolate chip cookies get hard, and I'm not really into that type of cookie. These were so easy to make, and we've already added them to our stack of reliable go-to recipes.
Here's what you need: 2 Tablespoons flax meal 3 Tablespoons water
2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour ¾ teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon cinnamon ¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cups 2 Tablespoons or 1 ¾ sticks Regular Vegan Butter or margarine, at room temperature 1 ½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons molasses 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350F, and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
1. First prepare your flax mixture, or what is often referred to as your "flax egg". In a small bowl whisk together the flax meal and the water. Allow it to sit for 10 minutes so the mixture thickens.
2. Now it's time to combine the dry ingredients. In a medium mixing bowl whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt until well incorporated. Set aside.
3. In a separate large mixing bowl cream the Vegan Butter and sugar until well mixed. Then beat in your flax mixture from step 1, followed by the molasses and vanilla extract.
4. Now add your bowl of mixed dry ingredients into you larger bowl with the creamed butter and sugar mixture. Mix until combined. I used a wooden spoon, but being that the dough is pretty thick, you may want to use your hands to really get in there. Lastly, stir in the chocolate chips.
5. Form the dough into 1 ½ inch sized balls. Space the balls out on the cookie sheets so that they're about 2 or 3 inches apart. You should get between 22 - 24 cookies. Bake for 15 minutes. Rotate the cookie sheets halfway through the baking time. Being that they really don't turn golden brown, it's a good idea to keep a close eye on the clock. When they're done, take the cookie sheets out of the oven and let the cookies rest on the sheets for a few minutes. Then transfer to a cooling rack.
The cookies will have a perfect, moist texture. We stored ours in an airtight container, and three days later they were still perfect.
Again, these cookies will definitely be in our regular rotation of trusted recipes. We hope you love them as much as we did! Thanks for reading!
xo, Aaron…and Jenny says hi!