A Vegan Cookie Experiment.

Finally!  I have a mostly legitimate reason to post on this blog.  As an experimental dive into vegan food and a more sustainable way of life (sort of), I hit upon the crazy idea of using a bunch of baking substitutions I found thanks to Pintrest.

This experiment is probably not all that exciting, but any excuse to make cookies, right?  Now this first batch was not true vegan, I had nestle chips to use up.  Vegan chocolate chips can fit into this recipe just as well as butterscotch chips or peanut butter chips or any other delightful tid bit you so desire.

I think I will call these Extreme Chocolate Fiber Cookies... that sounds less than appetizing.  More experimentation!

A tweak on a very popular cookie recipe:

Makes about 2 dozen regular sized cookies.

• 1 can (about 1.5 cups) of black beans, mashed into dryish paste with liquid removed
• 1 avocado, mashed 
• 1 banana, mashed
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 cup raw sugar (or other dry sugar product like stevia, xylitol, cane sugar, table sugar, etc.)
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (best to keep it a dry ingredient but use desired substance)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 
• 2 cups chocolate chips
• 1 cup walnuts (almonds, pecans, macadamia nut or any other nut would be good too)

Preheat oven to 375*F.

Mix everything together in a large mixing bowl.  

If you desire a true method to this wonderful madness, we should reference that method on the little yellow bag of chocolate chips: 

• Cream the avocado, vanilla and sugars together 
• Combine black beans, salt and baking soda together
• Add banana to avocado and sugar mixture
• Mix your drier mixture to your moister mixture
• Fold in chocolate chips and nuts

Now I used a serving spoon to drop my cookie "dough" onto my parchment paper lined baking sheets. Now I don't care about how pretty my cookies turn out, I have never been able to achieve the beautiful discs achieved by co-workers and supermarkets, so I scoop up batter and drop onto the baking sheet. (Thus the lumpy brown goo in the photograph).

Once the oven is preheated, you will want to put the cookies in for some time in between 9-13 minutes.  I had to go with a nice 11 minute window because after 9 minutes the cookies were still a bit too gooey in the center. 

Remove your cookies from the oven when you can insert a tooth pick into the center and have it come out clean.  This will work equally well with a fork or a knife, or a chop stick or a skewer or any other implement used to poke holes into things.

Let your cookies rest on the baking sheet for about a minute, before removing them to a cooling rack.  If you do not have a cooling rack, like me, then remove the cookies from the hot baking sheet to a cool baking sheet or other cooler surface.

This was an extremely moist batter, which was not unexpected, but does make for some very crumbly, soft cookies.  Despite the challenge in order to consume the cookie, they make great sweet snacks.  These cookies are probably not any healthier than normal cookies, but it was an interesting concept to try.

Enjoy :)