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Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

A flexible eggless cookie dough which can be made without baking soda/baking powder and can use many different flours. They're crispy on the edges and gooey in the centre.
Course Cookies
Keyword baking, chocolate chip, cookies, dairy free, egg free, eggless, vegan
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 6 minutes
Additional Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 21 minutes
Author Izy Hossack

Ingredients

  • 2 tbsp oats (see notes for substitutes)
  • 60 ml (1/4 cup) boiling water
  • 110 g (1/2 cup) vegan block margarine (vegan 'butter)
  • 110 g (1/2 cup) soft light brown sugar or dark brown sugar
  • 110 g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar or caster sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp fine table salt
  • 120 g plain white flour (see notes for substitutes)
  • 60 g wholemeal pastry flour (see notes for substitutes)
  • 3/4 tsp baking powder (see notes if you don't have any)
  • 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) (see notes if you don't have any)
  • 200 g (14 ounces) dark chocolate (see notes for substitutes)
  • flaky salt , to sprinkle (optional)

Instructions

  • Place the oats in a small bowl. Cover with the boiling water and set aside to gel and cool until just slightly warm to the touch (or cooler).
  • In a medium bowl, cream together the margarine and sugars until smooth - you don't need to get 'light and fluffy' for this. Add the cooled oat goop, vanilla & salt and mix together until combined. It may look curdled at this point - this is fine.
  • Add both flours and your baking powder & bicarbonate of soda. Stir until you get a soft dough.
  • Roughly chop your dark chocolate (you want the chunks to be a variety of sizes but max. around 2 cm) - using a serrated/bread knife here helps prevent the chocolate flying all over the place. Scrape all the chocolate into the bowl and mix until combined.
  • Take heaped tablespoons of dough (around 45g/1.5 ounce) and roll into balls. Place into a container or on a tray and chill for at least 1 hour (preferably overnight) or up to 5 days.
  • When ready to bake, line a baking tray with baking paper and preheat your oven to 200°C fan (400°F) or 220°C non-fan (420°F).
  • Place balls of dough onto your lined baking tray, spacing them about 5cm (2 inches) apart. Sprinkle with a bit of flaky salt, if using, and bake for 6-10 minutes until the edges are set but the centre is still a bit squishy & gooey. Allow to cool on the tray for 1-2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
  • Repeat with the remaining dough, as needed, until all the cookies are baked.

  • Note: if you want the freeze the dough, stop after you've completed step 5. Freeze the dough balls on the tray until solid then pop them into a resealable plastic bag. Place your bag of cookie dough balls into the freezer. You can bake them from frozen, you may just need to add 1-2 minutes to the baking time.

Notes

Small batch: halve or quarter the recipe to get a small batch
No oats? you can use 1 tbsp ground flaxseed (linseed) instead of the oats
No baking powder? Increase the baking soda in the recipe to 3/4 tsp
No bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)? Increase the baking powder in the recipe to 1 tsp
Substitutes for vegan block margarine:
  • you can use a spreadable (i.e. 'tub') margarine here but the cookies will spread more. Do not use a low fat one or it will not work!
  • If you're not vegan, use unsalted block butter which has been allowed to soften at room temperature
  • you may be able to use coconut oil here - reduce the amount to 75g and add 2 tbsp of water to the dough.
Substitutes for sugar:
  • you can use all white sugar in the dough if you don't have brown sugar. You can then add 1 tsp black treacle (or molasses) to the dough if you have any, to add back that treacley flavour!
  • you can use all light brown sugar in the dough if you don't have white sugar
  • Coconut sugar will work in place of part or all of the sugar in the dough
  • I wouldn't recommend using demerara ('raw') sugar here as the crystals are too large for the dough to form properly
Substitutes for plain white flour/wholemeal flour: white bread flour, white pastry/cake flour, white pasta ('00') flour, wholemeal bread flour, self-raising white flour (if using this, don't use any baking powder in the recipe), buckwheat flour, rye flour, spelt flour, gram flour (chickpea flour), oat flour, GF flour blend, kohrasan (kamut) flour, emmer flour
  • If substituting the flours, try to ensure that at least 1 of the flours you are using is a gluten-containing flour (e.g. any kind of wheat flour, rye flour, spelt flour, kamut flour or emmer flour). You need some gluten to be in the dough in order to get the right consistency.
  • I have tried it even using buckwheat flour + dark rye flour (a very low-gluten combination) and it has worked amazingly!
Substitutes for dark chocolate:
Use whatever chocolate you have on hand. I recommend using chocolate which is higher quality (i.e. not 'candy bar' chocolate like Cadbury's/Hershey's) as the lower quality chocolate may become chalky once baked.