They're the vegan version of the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies my mom and I made on Sunday. And dare I say the better version? They're moister, lighter, and what my Aunt described upon popping a piece of one in her mouth "a pillow of pumpkin and chocolate combined". People seem to think that vegan cooking, especially baking, requires special ingredients or talent, but that's not true. Perhaps the only extra that is needed is a little more manipulation and creativity, but with enough courage and cleverness (and a healthy dose of humor and patience) vegan baking can morph into the "normal" way to bake, it's definitely become the norm for me.
Enough preaching though, let's get down to the recipe.
The original ingredients:
"1 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon milk
1 tablespoon vanilla paste (extract will work just fine)
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips"
What I used:
1 can of pumpkin
1 cup white sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 flax eggs*
-2 tblesp unsweetened applesauce
-2 tblesp ground flax seed
-2 tblesp vegetable oil
4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
4 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tblesp cinnamon (I think pumpkin spice would work really good here too)
2 tblesp vanilla extract
2-4 cups dark chocolate chips (70% and high is safely vegan), depending upon how much chocolate you want in the cookie
*Vegan baking requires you to figure out what you're replacing in recipes and what ingredients will fill the roles of the parts you're taking out. Here I took out the egg. In this recipe the egg leavens and stabilizes the cookie through its liquid, fats, and proteins. So, here, the applesauce adds liquid, the ground flax seed adds protein, and the oil adds fat. BOOM you've got an egg...well, a flax egg.
What to do:
Preheat your oven to 350.
In a small bowl, mix your flax egg (applesauce, oil, and flax) and set aside. Look for the mixture to thicken slightly. The ground flax will absorb liquid from the applesauce and the oil.
In a large bowl, mix together the wet ingredients (pumpkin, oil, sugar, vanilla-add the flax egg last). This mixture will seem overly oily. Don't freak out, it's totally okay and will balance out when the dry ingredients are mixed in.
In whatever size bowl pleases you, combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon) I used a fork here to mix because I'm too lazy to sift flour, it's not the same but it makes me feel better about things.
(This is the point at which you hastily add all the ingredients you forgot...well, that's what I did.)
Now, using a spatula or hand mixer on the lowest setting one cup scoop at a time, add the flour mixture to your wet ingredients. Mix until the ingredients are just mixed. This step is crucial because if you over mix the flour your cookie will be dry and thus gross.
Using a spatula to mix in the chocolate chips evenly.
THESE COOKIES RISE. They are nearly cake like, so when you plop them down on the baking stone in heaping spoon fulls keep enough space between them. Unless of course you don't care if your cookies touch, then by all means, please, move to Somalia and live without rules and order, ya hippie.
Pop your totally non-Martha Stewart cookie cookbook worthy cookies into the oven for exactly 12 minutes. This time set is fail/burn-proof don't screw with it.
Remove the tray from the oven and let the cookies rest on the pan for 2 minutes. Then transfer them to a cooling tray...or skip the cooling and start eating, I recommend that instead.
If you make these let me know how it goes in the comments below! Or if ya want to make them and want clarification ask me down V there in the comments.
And don't forget, send out your ray of sunshine today, you never know whose day it will brighten.
Ciao per adesso!