I’ve been promising to make cookies for the radio-station staff meeting for a while now. However, we have a vegan amongst us, so I need a recipe (or two) that takes this into account.
Anyone have any good recipes?
Thanks,
Robin
Let me get my terms straight here. “Vegan” would mean no animal products at all, no animal fats, no eggs, butter, honey, etc.? That’s a tough one, I’ll look at what I’ve got. Is ordinary refined sugar okay?
It helps that I’ve seen him eat, so I have some idea of his limitations.
He’s very careful about avoiding any kind of animal products. No eggs, dairy, animal fats, honey, etc. I’m sure refined sugar is OK, though; I’ve seen him eat some processed foods.
Robin
I once ate a vegan cookie by mistake. It was nasty. I mean, really nasty. I told my co-worker I’d give him ten bucks if he could finish the whole thing (it was a big cookie.) He tried valiantly but could not bring himself to do it after bite 3. Make something else for your vegan, please. I beg of you.
IANAV, but I’ve lived with and baked for Vegans and I can say that Vegan cookies are not too hard.
Re: refined sugar
Apparently part of the processing of white sugar may include running it through filters that use calf-bone, thus making it of questionable veganity (that is, since we don’t know whether this was the process used for the refining, we can’t be sure whether any animals were harmed in the making of it). I heard this second hand, so I’m not sure whether it is true at all. If you don’t want to use white sugar, a less refined variety such as turbinado is, apparently, OK.
The main problem to overcome is usually the eggs. For most cookies you need something to bind them, and eggs are the simplest solution. Since they are not vegan, however, you have to find a substitute.
Options:
You can buy egg replacer from most health food stores, I think the most common variety is Ener-G brand (bear in mind that some things that replace eggs may have egg derivatives in them like dried white). Ener-G is basically potato starch with extra leavening (i.e. baking powder) in it.
You can also add a mashed up banana to your cookies (I think one banana equals one or two eggs, I’m not sure, you can probably find more info on-line). This tends to give your cookies a banana-y flavor, but that can be nice. Chocolate chip cookies with banana in them are nice. This technique is known in the vegan community.
Another option that I have heard about from vegans is apple sauce. I think I’ve had cookies made this way, and they were good. Similarly to above, you will probably taste the apple, though not as much as banana, I think. Both techniques make nicely moist cookies.
You can also make an egg-replacer by boiling some flax seeds in water. This produces a goopy mixture not unlike egg-white. You don’t need too many flax seeds, just a tablespoon or so. You can drain the goop so that you don’t have any seeds in the cookies, or you can leave them in for an interesting texture. Like apples and bananas, flax seeds do impart a flavor to the baked goods. I’d say that flax seeds have less of an effect on the flavor, but the flavor that they do imapart is less pleasant. I’d be careful about using flax seeds when baking for people who are not used to or sympathetic to vegan baking.
A final egg replacer that I like is cinnamon. My non-vegan housemate discovered this. If you take about a eighth of a teaspoon of cinnamon and boil it in a cup or two of water, it will produce a goopy substance that works like eggs (or the flax seed goop). I haven’t baked with this technique extensively, but it seems to work quite well. An bug advantage to this technique is that it doesn’t seem to overwhelm the other flavors and to the extent you can taste the cinnamon it tends to jibe well with the other flavors in a cookie. (One thing, I’m not 100% sure about the proportions of cinnamon and water, the above amounts are what I remember, you can probably experiment).
Other animal products:
Milk
-Generally notnecessary, nice, but not necessary. Other liquid ingredients can compensate.
Butter-
-Very helpful in baking cookies, but you can usually substitute Margerine or vegetable oil. If you use margerine, be very careful to check the ingredients as they may contain milk solids, whey, or other animal products. I like Earth Balance Buttery spread. It comes in a tub and is vegan and non-hydrogenated. If you use it, you probably shouldn’t add any salt since it is salted (at least the kind we always got). You can also use a vegatable oil that has little flavor, I used canola oil. It is definitely a different experience than using butter or margerine, but with practice it works fine.
Other than that I can’t think of any other substitutions you’ll have to make.
Bear in mind that Vegan cookies are different. They are similar to non-vegan cookies, but it is uncommon for vegan cookies to taste just like their non-vegan counterparts. Generally speaking, one should not try to mimic non-vegan food too closely when trying to make vegan food, it rarely works well. It is a good idea to look to non-vegan food for inspiration, but one should not be disappointed if it doesn’t taste like the original (as long as it still tastes good).
Another thing, I think that it sometimes takes time to get used to certain parts of vegan food. At first I found it disconcerting to eat cookies that had no butter milk or eggs and I thought I preferred the non-vegan version. Over time, as I ate more vegan cookies and ate less non-vegan cookies, I started to like them much more and I cookies with animal products in them tasted wierd (especially milk products). Now that I don’t have to cook for vegans, I make cookies with animal products in them and like them a lot.
A final note. People’s reactions to foods tend to be influenced by what they are told about they are about to eat. Be careful about saying “these are vegan cookies, you might not like them,” or other negative things about the cookies. Be honest, but don’t talk them down too much. If you like them yourself, chances are most people will also like them. If you are disappointed, don’t bandy it about too loudly, others might like them.
There shouldn’t be a major problem. If you substitute vegan margarine for butter and avoid chocolate chips, everything should turn out OK.
For something easy maybe you could try some oatmeal shortbread.
I used to cook vegan for my soon to be ex sister in law. Including baking a vegan wedding cake
I wouldn’t inflict vegan baked good on the rest of the staff. Bring the cookies you want to make, and bring a fruit salad as well. Egg substitute isn’t eggs. Vegan margerine isn’t butter.
(however, vegan peanut butter cookies aren’t half bad. Not as good as the “real” ones, and you’ll break the bank if you go for the organic peanut butter many vegans prefer (not only was my SIL vegan, she was also picky about brand - once I made something without animal products to discover I’d used some product from some horrible international conglomerate that kills babies for sport or something - and she wouldn’t eat it).
I too vote for the fruit salad for the vegan. My mother once inflicted vegan pumpkin bars upon us. I’m not sure even she could eat them.
There are some sorta-cookies made of peanut butter balls rolled in coconut.
You could improvise starting with the buckeye balls recipe here. To be particularly obnoxious to the vegan you could call them buck eyeballs, like we did as kids.
http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,197,156176-225192,00.html
The roll in coconut replaces the chocolate coating, in case that wasn’t clear.
These taste a lot like pumpkin pie. Sunsweet makes organic vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips that actually taste good, though if you can’t find them, there is dairy free semisweet baking bars that you could chop for chocolate chunk cookies (more work I know, but not everywhere has vegan chocolate chips available). And they freeze well too.
Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin puree
2 cups white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup all vegetable shortening
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (imitation vanilla works for sober friends)
4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions:
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Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
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Cream the sugar (both brown and white), shortening, pumpkin, and vanilla together. Mix until light and well combined.
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Mix the flour, baking soda, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt together. Stir the flour mixture into the creamed mixture. Mix until combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
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Drop by teaspoons onto an ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 375 degrees F for 12 to 15 minutes or until set. Let cookies cool on a rack.
Makes 7 to 8 dozen cookies.
Start by chopping two fresh vegans 
And by the way, that’s a whole bag of chocolate chips, or a cup and a half to two cups of the chocolate chunk if you use the bars in this recipe.
Try The Post Punk Kitchen, which has a vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe. I haven’t tried anything from these folks myself, but the site’s visitors can rate each recipe, so at least there’s some sort of real-life checking mechanism.
As for vegan chocolate chips, Tropical Source is another brand – it actually won Cook’s Illustrated’s evaluation of chocolate chips a few years back, beating out estimable competition from the likes of Ghirardelli and Guittard. The only bad part is that it’s probably not carried by the major supermarket chains, so you’ll have to find them at natural-foods stores.
Fortunately, we do have a pretty good natural-foods store where I live; if they don’t have something, they’ll tell me where to find it.
Robin
These got rave reviews and requests for the recipe from non-vegans! I didn’t think they were so great, though. I like my snickerdoodles (non-vegan), thankyouverymuch.
No bake Vegan Peanut Butter Granola balls
1 cup Peanut Butter, vegan friendly (I use adams, 'cause that’s what I eat)
1/4-1/2 cup Maple Syrup
pinch salt
3 cups plain granola - find this in the cereal aisle
Vanilla (if desired)
You can do almond butter if there’s a peanut allergy or skip the vanilla for people who don’t do alcohol. Watch the ingredients on the granola - some have strange things in them. Plain is cheapest and best. I usually bring in the clipped ingredient labels for my homemade offerings to let people read for themselves.
Oh, directions: stir peanut butter, salt, vanilla, and syrup together. Add granola, then roll into 1" balls. I give 'em a second roll in granola to keep them from sticking too bad. Then into the fridge they go. Let cool for at least an hour. Serve.
http://www.mccormick.com/fusetalk/messageview.cfm?catid=2&threadid=685
Looking for a Great VEGAN cookie recipe
Here’s a ton of them
Here’s my favorite!
Biteback Cookies
Ingredients (use vegan versions):
1/2 cup non-hydrogenated vegan margarine or shortening
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup vegan sugar
6 tablespoon tomato puree
1 tablespoon Ener-G Ener-G Egg Replacer
2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup loosely packed fresh bazil leaves
or how about some yummy vinegar cookies