Shenandoah Valley Vegan Brewery

One of my earliest memories isn’t a taste, but the smell of my mother taking some freshly baked chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. I can even feel the heat against me as I tried to nudge past her to take a look. The wait as they cooled, as always, was excruciating.

A lot of people think of chocolate chip cookies as a snack, or a junk food, but for me every time I cook them using her recipe it’s a way of connecting back not only to my first teacher but to those wonderfully sweet memories.

Of course, she wasn’t vegan like I am, so we’ve made a few modifications, but I’m hopeful that this recipe takes you back to a beautiful memory as well.

The cookies are soft and chewy but crisp up a bit as they cool. They’re fast to make, and it’s really hard to mess up the recipe.

Here are the ingredients you’ll need to grab:

• 1/2 cup vegan butter
• 1/2 cup cane sugar
• 8 oz dark chocolate
• 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch
• a small pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Making the cookies

Step 1

Preheat your oven to 355 degrees.

Step 2

Sift together the dry ingredients, the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder.

Step 3

Whip together the vegan butter and sugar until creamy.

Step 4

Add all of your dry ingredients plus the dark chocolate to the butter and lightly mix until it’s just combined. It should look clumpy.

Step 6

Grab a tablespoon (or cookie scooper if you have one) and separate the dough into small balls and place them on the baking sheet. Make sure the cookies have room to grow, and press them down with the palm of your hand.

Step 7

Bake the cookies at 355 degrees for 14 minutes. The real secret behind my mother’s recipe is actually in this step. You want to open the oven (remember that smell, RELEASE IT!) and with oven mitts on grab the tray of cookies. You’ll gently swish it back and forth, almost like you’re spreading pancake dough on a hot pan. The cookies will flatten slightly and the surface will break and crack as it continues to bake, releasing chocolate into the seems. Trust me, it’s worth it.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Enjoy!

Tips and Tricks

• You’ll want to use sugar made from beets because it won’t have any bone char in it. If you aren’t sure if your sugar is vegan or not, just search the brand of sugar + “vegan” and you can usually find out.
• Don’t use flax! It completely changes the texture of the cookie and is unnecessary.
• Don’t skimp on the chocolate chips, I use the amount listed above, but you can even use more if you really love chocolate.
• You can eat the dough, because there’s no egg!
• If you really like salt, I’d recommend grabbing some very coarse sea salt and sprinkling it on when you open the oven halfway through to shake the cookies. It really brings out the sweetness.
• The flour can be any that you like, I’ve also tested this recipe with gluten-free flour and it turns out pretty good.
• The trick to making soft and chewy cookies is to not bake them for too long and to let them cool on the wire rack. They will hold up, I promise!

Enjoy!