The Search for the Perfect Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

If you like your vegan chocolate chip cookies crispy or crunchy, stop reading. You will find nothing for you in what follows.

If, like me, you enjoy these classic cookies baked right to the very second of perfection so that they melt in your mouth but not while you hold them, hang with me and reap the benefits of years of research.

My Criteria:

• Texture: No crunch. No crisp. Just soft, melty goodness.
• Chocolate Chip-to-Cookie Ratio: My love of chocolate knows no bounds, but when it comes to cookies, I like the cookie part in balance with the chocolate. A cookie shouldn’t only be a conduit to hold the chips.
• Taste Ideal: Hint of vanilla, a touch of salt, mostly sweet, and speckled with semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips.

Search Methods:

• Pinterest: I made a board for this search. If you like to collect recipes (or collect really anything), Pinterest will keep it together for you. It’s a good place for vegans to peer into each other’s libraries of goodies. :)
• Cookbooks: Check them out from the library, arrange an exchange with your vegan friends, and buy the ones you know are keepers!

Results:

I hate to disappoint, but I can’t possibly name one winner. Depending on my mood or the situation, different top-tier recipes can be called upon. So here are the highlights:

• Sticky Fingers’ Sweets: 100 Super-Secret Vegan Recipes. Page 123. Follow the very specific instructions on how to measure. And, you’re welcome.
• One Green Planet for a do-it-yourself “Tollhouse” type. The bit of applesauce mixed in with the fats makes them plump and moist.
• Babycakes cookbook for gluten-free classic goodness.
• My local bakery, Pattycake Bakery, makes one of my favorites! If I don’t want to sample them at the dough stage and heat up my own oven, they are my go-to. They use both silken tofu and flax seed/water for egg replacer, and I’m not sure what else they do but suspect it involves some vegan love sprinkles.

And whether you add in walnuts is a very personal decision.

Any reader recipes to add to my collection in my life-long search for the perfect vegan chocolate chip cookies?

Photo credit: Sarah R via Flickr