I don’t like to use clickbait-y titles, but I promise to you that these chocolate chip cookies are by far the best vegan cookie recipe I have ever tried. Even in my pre vegan days, I’d never baked a cookie this good before! They are ridiculously thick, packed with an obscene amount of chocolate, and look like they came straight out the oven of a high end bakery.
Jump to Recipe
These impressive cookies make use of one of my favourite vegan ingredients – aquafaba. Yep, that stuff you pour down the sink when you drain a tin of chickpeas is liquid gold in the vegan baking world. There’s no need to expensive egg substitutes here! It doesn’t make the end result taste even remotely beany, so please don’t be put off giving it a go. Even if you’re not a vegan, don’t go wasting that magic stuff!
The key to the perfect texture is in the baking and cooling time. When you take these out of the oven after 20 minutes, they may seem to be too soft and gooey. That’s not a bad thing! You need to let the freshly baked cookies sit undisturbed on the baking sheet for a minimum of 30 mins once you’ve taken them out of the oven – but ideally even more. They firm up when they cool, leaving you with jaw dropping soft and chewy texture, packed with chocolate.
What’s inside?
Aquafaba
All hail the glorious miracle ingredient aquafaba. Or as i like to call it, chickpea juice. It’s the starchy liquid you get from draining tinned chickpeas, and I can’t recommend saving it from a tin of chickpeas, and using it at home. Even if you’re not a vegan yet! Most of the time, I’d whisk it to form soft peaks – but in these cookies, I just slowly poured the liquid as it came straight into my mixer as it was beating the sugars and butter substitute.
Sugar
You need to use a mix of white caster, and light brown sugar here. This is important for both the taste and texture of these ridiculously good cookies.
‘Butter’
Any vegan block butter substitute would work here, but my personal preference is Flora Plant. Make sure to use the block style though – spreadable butter substitutes and margarines tend to have higher water content, which may not work quite as well for these.
Flour
Here is another tip to getting the best cookies – use a mix of plain flour, and bread flour. The bread flour helps to contribute to the gorgeous chewy texture. I advise against self raising flour here, as we’ll be adding our own raising agents to these.
Chocolate
Because you can’t have cookies without an obscene amount of chocolate! I use dark chocolate callets here, as I find the disk shape holds up wonderfully during the baking. I’d advise using them as opposed to smaller chocolate chips, or chopped chocolate bars due to this. Just make sure that what you’re using is vegan friendly, as sadly not all dark chocolate is for some reason! It’s increasingly getting easier to find plant based milk and white chocolate, but I’d recommend dark here, purely because of how wonderfully it works with the rich and decadent cookie.
I always take a moment to marvel at the glorious site of these behemoth cookies whenever I take a batch out the the oven. This is my old favourite recipe that I used for years prior to becoming vegan, and I’m so overjoyed at how wonderfully the recipe has translated. If anything, I think it’s even better now than it ever was! So give it a go! Store the baked and cooled cookies in an airtight container for up to 2 days. If you don’t think you’ll eat them in time, you can simply freeze the individual balls of dough once you’ve portioned them up. You can bake them from frozen, whenever you fancy a decadent sweet treat. If you give this a go, I’d love to see it! Please do tag me on your Instagram posts or stories if you give try it out!
- 115 g Vegan block butter, Softened to room temperature
- 115 g light brown sugar
- 100 g caster sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- Pinch of grated nutmeg
- 100 ml aquafaba (drained liquid from a tin of chickpeas)
- 185 g all-purpose flour
- 100 g bread flour
- 400 g dark chocolate chips
-
Put the softened vegan butter, the sugars, the vanilla, baking powder and soda, and the pinch of nutmeg in the bowl of a stand mixer, with the paddle attachment. Starting on a low speed, combine all of the ingredients. When nicely mixed, turn it up to a medium speed, and cream the ingredients together for 8-9 minutes, stopping to scrape the bowl half way through. The mixture should turn pale and fluffy.
-
With the mixer on a medium speed, slowly pour in the aquafaba, and mix until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, and mix again for 30 seconds.
-
Put both flours into the bowl, and mix together, start with a low speed until the four is incorporated, and then turn it up to medium until everything is beautifully mixed.
-
Add in the chocolate. You can choose to either stir these in by hand with a wooden spoon, or with the stand mixer on it's lowest setting. Mix until evenly distributed.
-
Divide the dough into 8 portions (approx. 130-140g each), and roll into balls. Place on a large plate, wrap in cling film, and refrigerate for at least 12 hours, and up to 72 hours.
-
Once the dough has rested in the fridge, it's time to bake. Preheat an oven to 180 degrees C/160 degrees C fan/gas mark 4.
-
Line a baking tray with non stick baking paper
-
Once the oven is up to temperature, arrange 4 of the dough balls on the baking tray, ensuring to keep them well spaced out for the to spread. Optional – Sprinkle the balls with a little salt if you would like, to help boost the flavour.
-
Bake in the oven for 20 mins, until lightly golden brown and puffed.
-
Leave the baked cookies on the baking tray to cool for a minimum of 30 minutes. If you try to handle them whilst still hot, they will simply disintegrate into a gooey mess.
-
Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely, and bake any remaining dough portions. Store baked cookies in an airtight container, and eat within 2 days.
Leave a Reply