Sugar Cookies, Covers, and Testing 1-2-3
Oops. I haven’t blogged in quite awhile!
I have a good excuse though-we’ve been busy! Testing has started and well underway. Testers have been very awesome and I’m very impressed with all the cookie making they’ve been doing!
These photos are from awhile ago. I’m slowly but surely progressing with blogging all my backlogged photos.
Amazingly Soft Sugar Cookies with Basic Buttercream Frosting
These are your basic, versatile sugar cookies to be used for any occassion. Here I’ve unintentionally replicated those awful, yet delicious grocery store cookies back from omni days.
This time, they’re stacked and the frosting is root beer flavored!
Seriously, I highly recommend investing in root beer extract. It will change your life.
Sprinkles
These are Wilton Jumbo Rainbow Nonpareils. They’re fruity flavored and completely vegan. No hydrogenated oils either!
I found them in the baking section of Hobby Lobby and have also seen them at Bed Bath and Beyond. Look around and you’ll probably be able to find them in the baking section of most craft stores or a baking store.
Garrick is incredibly awesome.
He’s been working with cookie photos and coming up with some makeshift covers for the book. We still haven’t decided on a finalized cover yet, but this one has been Vegan Cookies’ visual internet alias. It’s also the lovely cover of my recipe notebook.
Organizational Systems
On the left is my cookie testing binder where I have the printed out recipes, tester evaluations, and all that good stuff. On the right is my recipe notebook where I jot down ingredient lists as I’m making up a cookie recipe and keep the handwritten recipes.
A Look into the Recipe Notebook
I am sloppy with this. It’s all ingredient lists with no instructions and quite disorganized, but it works!
Quite A Variety
I celebrated my two-year veganversary on September 2nd and made a cookie cake fitting for the occassion!
Peanut Butter and Jelly Thumbprints
The first in a series of thumbprint cookies.
Oatmeal Peanut Butter No-Bakes
Thin and Chewy Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies
There are going to be multiple chocolate chip cookies to suit everyone’s palete!
Chewy Pumpkin Spice Cookies
It seems to be a near impossible feat to create a pumpkin spicy cookie that is chewy. Fluffy? Cakey? Soft? Easy.
These were pretty good, but unfortunately didn’t turn out chewy as I’d hoped. Back to the drawing board!
Chocolate Dipped Powdered Creams
Melt in your mouth!
Vanilla Sandwich Cookies
These are oreos’ alter-ego, commonly known as “Uh-oh” Oreos. Except these come with variations on the cream inside. Pictured here is chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. The recipe still needs a bit of work as the cookie parts came out chewy-ish rather than crisp.
Caramel Cashew Nut Rolls
I got this idea from Garrick on the PPK (he’s writing this book with me, actually!). I need to fix the caramel recipe, but these are excellent.
Double Chocolate Cookies
I’ve blogged about these before. Made them this morning!
And I posted the recipe for these on the Post Punk Kitchen forums, so I’ll share here too!
Giant Bakery Style Double Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 8-10 giant cookies (or more small ones)
These cookies will soon rock your world. They are huge, chocolate-y, chewy, soft, and decadent, all contained in a four-inch diameter. My goal here was to recreate those huge asparagus bakery cookies with crispy edges and a delicious chewy center and these cookies have surpassed those other cookies. So make these ones! They’re an amazing treat that will leave you addicted.
1/2 cup chocolate chips (for melting)
1/2 cup soy milk
2/3 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 cups flour
2/3 cup cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Melt the chocolate chips with 1/3 cup of the soy milk in either a microwave or in a glass dish placed in a saucepan of boiling water (makeshift double-boiler).
Pour the melted chocolate and soy milk into a large bowl, then add the rest of the soy milk, oil, vanilla, sugar, and cornstarch.
Add in the flour (unsifted), cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Stir until thoroughly mixed, then add the chocolate chips.
Here comes the super fun part! Using your hands (or if you must, a spoon. Live a little! Get your hands covered in the most chocolate-y cookie dough ever!), grab handfuls of cookie dough and flatten them out to a little thicker than a 1/2″ on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
Bake for about 15 minutes (shorter if you made smaller cookies) or until the edges are very firm, and the centers look chewy and feel soft to the touch. Let rest on the cookie sheet for a minute or so, then very carefully transfer to the cooling rack without destroying any cookies. They are completely amazing warm and gooey and still taste divine after cooling off.
Grahams and Pixies
I love love love making graham crackers. I’ve made my basic recipe countless times and am in the process of making variations, including the chocolate kind below. Yum!
Plain Grahams
Chocolate Grahams
Pixies or Iced Fudge Brownie Cookies as I’ve dubbed them are amazingly chocolatey with a soft inside and crunchy exterior. They’re rolled in powdered sugar before and after baking to get that “look”.
Cookie Bars
Chocolate Peppermint Cream Bars
I altered and veganized these decadent chocolate peppermint bars from the 1998 Wisconsin Electric Company Cookie Book. My dad used to work for them and the cookie book is a great little reference and source of inspiration. Apparently they’ve been putting out these mini books since the 1940s when the singular form of cookie was “cooky”. I’d love to get my hands on one of those!
Anyway, these bars are amazing. The original recipe called for premade chocolate syrup and a whole lot of butter. This was remedied by using a homemade chocolate syrup and help from Earth Balance margarine.
Cappuccino Nanaimo Bars
These are also from the aforementioned book, but very heavily modified. I decided to make the coconut an optional ingredient as I prefer them with little to no coconut. These are filled with mocha cream filling (delicious!) and have chopped cashews in the base.
Peanut Butter Cocoa Puff Bars
These came about when I was at the grocery store stocking up on cookie supplies (20 lbs each of flour and sugar, anyone?). I remembered that Cocoa Puffs are vegan and decided to pick up a box to see what I could come up with. These bars were basically improvised and turned out delicious!
Oreos and Oatmeal Raisin
Oreos
I’d been meaning to come up with a recipe for this classic cookie for a long time. The opportunity finally presented itself to me when the consumption of solid foods was quite difficult due to the removal of my wisdom teeth. A little voice (maybe it was the prescription drugs…) was telling me to make cookies ‘n’ cream frosting. However, there were no cookies in the house and I was in no state to drive anywhere to buy them. This was the perfect time to create my very own chocolate wafer-like cookies that would sandwich together encasing a sweet vanilla cream between them. And it happened.
Besides eating these cookies on their own, they are great for making cookies ‘n’ cream frosting, milkshakes, ice cream, cupcakes, and so much more. For the sake of not having to clean your beaters before you make the cream filling after you made the cookies, we’re going to make the cream filling first! Or if you’re using a fork to make it, do it in whatever order you want. The shortening is essential in the cream filling for a stiff, non-runny texture, so no substitutions! This is a great recipe to have on hand for those times when you need chocolate cream-filled sandwich cookies, but have too many drugs in your system to drive a car or walk to the store anywhere near cars. Remember that the oven is hot though!
Oatmeal Raisin
This is my version of the classic cookie. It’s soft, flavorful, and decadent!
Giant Bakery Style Double Chocolate Chip Cookies and Autumn Clouds Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies (Recipe)
Giant Bakery Style Double Chocolate Chip Cookies
These are pure chocolate bliss. Rich chewy chocolate cookies scattered throughout with warm, gooey chocolate chips. Probably one of my favorites, ever.
Autumn Clouds Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
In my quest for a chewy, spicy pumpkin cookie, I created these fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth pumpkin cookies. While they’re not what I had intended to make, I’m glad they turned out this way because they are delicious cookies! You don’t have to make them in autumn because pumpkin chocolate chip cookies are wonderful any time of the year! The day I made them for the first time was for a party in the summer and they were devoured within minutes! The best way to make these is BIG.
Recipe (makes about 16-24, depending on size)
1 cup pumpkin puree
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon molasses
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup canola oil
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips (you could replace these with raisins, nuts, or other dried fruit)
Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a large bowl, mix together the pumpkin, sugar, molasses, maple syrup, and oil. Sift together the flour, baking powder, spices, and salt and add to the wet ingredients. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Drop by huge (scone-sized) or normal-sized spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for about 10-12 minutes until firm. Transfer to a cooling rack and enjoy! These taste amazing warm out of the oven and the flavors are really brought out overnight or a few hours later.
*Reminder: My oven bakes very quickly, so you may have to bake these longer. If you make them, let me know how long it took. <3
Chocolate Pudding Pie with Peanut Butter Cookie Crust
This is a homemade peanut butter cookie crumbles crust filled with decadent chocolate pudding. It’s a messy pie, but oh so delicious.
A Variety of Cookies on the Table
Classic Crispy Chewy Chocolate Chip
These cookies have a delectable chewy center and crispy edges.
Harry Potter Sugar Cookies
For the book release July 21st!
Crispy Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Banana Cookies
Chewy and banana-y!
Coconut Oatmeal Raisin Breakfast Cookies
Cookies for breakfast?! Of course, with these! I have fallen in love with these and make them for breakfast frequently. They’re completely whole grain, contain no sugar (sweetened with dates), and have a miniscule amount of oil. An ideal cookie for breakfast. They are even open to variations with different dried fruits and nuts.
Sesame Halvah Cookies
Rich sesame tahini cookies with bits of halvah scattered throughout, then rolled in sesame seeds. These are wonderful. I’m not sure how I feel about the halvah though.
Snickerdoodles! And recipe!
Cinnamon…sugar…snickerdoodles!
These lovely cookies were made by Garrick from the PPK. Photo courtesy of Garrick.
As requested, I’m going to share this recipe. I’ll be sharing some cookie recipes from time to time, so let me know how they were if you make them!
Snickerdoodles
Makes about 3-4 dozen
3/4 cup margarine
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup soy milk
2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons sugar
Preheat oven to 325°F.
Cream together the margarine and sugar until fluffy. Add the vanilla, soy milk, and cornstarch and mix until incorporated.
Sift in the flour, baking powder, salt, cornstarch, and cinnamon. Stir. If the dough is too dry and crumbly, add a splash of soy milk. It shouldn’t be sticky though.
Mix the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Form the dough into 1 1/2″ balls and roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Place on a lightly greased cookie sheet and flatten slightly. Bake for about 12 minutes until golden around the edges, but still soft on top, then transfer to a wire cooling rack.
Enjoy!
Edit: I don’t think I’ve mentioned this on my blog yet, but my oven bakes everything freakishly quick (even from cookbooks, etc), so baking times on recipes I share definitely aren’t set in stone. Accurate/average baking times will be established when recipe testing starts and the cookie recipes get baked in a variety of kitchens with different ovens since some ovens bake slooowly and some quick.
So, if you try out a recipe and the cookies are definitely not done after the specified time that worked in my oven, just bake them longer and let me know how long they took.
Peanut Butter Oreos and Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sammmich Cookies
Peanut Butter Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
A variation of my basic oreo cookie recipe.
Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sandwich Cookies
Vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two Soft Baked and A Little Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies, then rolled in smashed chocolate chips.
