If you can bake vegan chocolate chip cookies, you’re set to be everyone’s best friend. These ones are so good, no one would even know they’re plant-based. Whether you like them soft and chewy, crisp and crunchy or somewhere in the middle, this easy recipe has you covered.
These vegan choc chip cookies may not sit that well in my healthy Veganuary, but we all need a treat from time to time. And much as I love my chocolate oat truffles, sometimes I like something a bit different.
Dive Right In
- Why Make Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies?
- Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Ingredients
- How To Make Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
- How To Store Homemade Cookies
- Other Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes You Might Like
- Keep In Touch
- The Recipe
Why Make Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies?
If you’re not quite sure how to make biscuits and cookies without butter and eggs, this recipe for vegan chocolate chip cookies is a very good place to start. Here are a few more reasons why you’ll want to make them.
- Allergen-Friendly – As the recipe is vegan, it makes it open to those who are allergic to dairy or eggs. This makes my chocolate chip cookie recipe more inclusive than most.
- Easy To Customise – Bake a batch of chocolate cookies, just how you like them. Use bitter dark chocolate, plant milk chocolate or something in between, depending on how sweet or how chocolatey you like your chocolate chip cookies. You can even used flavoured chocolate if that grabs your fancy. A few flakes of salt on top? You decide.
- Healthier Option – I use half wholemeal flour in this recipe. This gives a bit of much needed fibre as well as vitamins and minerals. I also use less sugar than you’ll find in most chocolate chip cookies, yet they’re still perfectly sweet. And of course the ingredients are plant based, so are lower in saturated fats and cholesterol.
- Irresistibly Delicious – Ultimately, these cookies are mouthwateringly good. They’re loaded with chocolate chips, flakes and chunks and are lightly flavoured with the sweet notes of vanilla. No one would know they weren’t traditional.
- Perfect Texture – Everyone has a different idea of how they like their chocolate chip cookies. Whether you prefer crisp and crunchy, soft and chewy or crunchy on the outside and chewy in the middle, it’s easy to bake these to your own idea of textural perfection.
- Simple Bake – These vegan choc chip cookies are super simple to make and they hardly take any hands-on time at all.
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Out of all the chocolate chips cookies I’ve made over my lifetime, I reckon these vegan ones are the best. They’re neither too thin or too chunky. The flavour is excellent, of course. But mostly I like them for their texture.
Whether you like them crisp and crunchy or soft and chewy, they’re always deliciously soft in the middle when warm. Bake up a batch today and experience the joy of biting into irresistible indulgence.
They have cracked tops, but I think the rustic look just adds to their charm. Any anyway, they’re homemade cookies, not works of art.
They’re a healthier treat than traditional chocolate chip cookies, but they don’t compromise on taste. Not only are these biscuits made with plant-based ingredients, but I also use half wholemeal flour and less sugar.
These vegan chocolate chip cookies are at their most toothsome on the day of baking. However, they will keep in an airtight tin for four days or so. To freshen them up or eat warm, just pop them in a hot oven or air-fryer for a couple of minutes.
Ingredients
All the ingredients needed to make these vegan chocolate chip cookies are standard ingredients, bar the vegan chocolate and vegan fat. You’ll probably have most of them in your kitchen store cupboard.
Butter
I’ve never really been a fan of over processed margarine, so I prefer to use coconut oil in my vegan baking rather than vegan spreads. However, since I started making my own vegan butter, I’m happy to use that now too.
Whatever you go with, make sure it’s fairly soft before you use it or it will make the process of creaming the butter and sugar together rather difficult.
If using coconut oil, you might want to use deodorised coconut oil, so you don’t get the flavour of coconut in your cookies.
Chocolate
You can use whatever type of chocolate you like for these biscuits. Just make sure it’s vegan. Either go with good quality chocolate chips, or cut a bar into various size chunks and slithers as I did.
I actually prefer a bar to bought chocolate chips. This is often because the quality of the chocolate is better, but also you get a nice variety of sizes.
If you prefer a richer and less sweet chocolate chip cookie experience, go for dark chocolate. But if something less bitter and a bit sweeter is more your bag, try plant-milk chocolate. You can even get vegan white chocolate these days.
I used a plant-milk bar made with almond milk.
Flour
Although I normally bake with a hundred percent wholemeal spelt flour, I compromised with these cookies. They just look nicer made with half and half. So I used half white spelt flour and half ordinary wholemeal.
Milk
I prefer soy milk for baking as it gives bakes a bit more structure than other plant-based milks. It has a higher protein content than any of the others and this also helps to give a more golden colour to bakes.
However, the differences are minor and it’s fine to use whatever plant milk you have in the fridge.
How To Make Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Please refer to the recipe card at the bottom of this post for full instructions and quantities of ingredients used.
Step 1: Cream Fat And Sugar
In a large mixing bowl, cream the vegan butter or coconut oil together with the sugars and salt until the mixture is light in colour and fluffy in texture.
The key to this is to make sure the fat is soft. Take it out of the fridge an hour before you need to use it. If it’s still too hard, I half melt it in a pan over a low heat which seems to work. If you do this, make sure you don’t melt it completely or you won’t be able to work the sugar into the fat properly.
You can do this by hand with a wooden spoon or use electric beaters. It’s up to you.
Step 2: Add Milk
Beat in the vanilla extract followed by your chosen plant milk. The mixture will curdle a bit, but that’s fine. Keep beating until it all comes together.
Step 3. Sieve Flour
Sieve the flour and other dry ingredients into the bowl. Make sure to tip any bran left in the sieve into the bowl too.
Work the flour into the butter mixture. A wooden spoon is best for this. But be warned, it will make a stiff dough. Be patient, just keep going and it will come together.
Step 4. Add Chocolate
If using a bar of chocolate, place it on a chopping board, then cut it at an angle with a large sharp knife. This should give you varying sizes of chocolate bits.
Work the chocolate chips or pieces into the dough with your wooden spoon.
Step 5. Shape Cookies
Line a large baking tray, or two smaller ones with baking paper. As you can see from the image further down, I reuse my baking paper as many times as I can.
Take heaped teaspoons of the dough and roll them into balls between the palms of your hands. I made eighteen, but somewhere between that and sixteen is fine.
Place the balls on the lined baking tray, spaced well apart. The cookies will spread. Flatten them slightly.
If you like the idea, sprinkle the tops with a few flakes of sea salt. It adds a nice touch. I used smoked sea salt flakes.
Place in the fridge, or somewhere cold, for half an hour to firm up. It’s fine to leave them longer if you want to get ahead. If they’re too soft, they will spread too much when baking and you’ll end up with a thin crisp biscuit.
Top Tip
If your kitchen is warm, the dough may be a bit soft and sticky to roll into balls. If this is the case, place in the fridge or even freezer for fifteen minutes to half an hour for the dough to firm up.
Step 6. Bake Cookies
Bake on the middle shelf of your preheated oven for ten to fifteen minutes or until the cookies have flattened somewhat and are cracked and lightly golden all over.
How long you cook them depends on the texture you’re after. I quite like mine crunchy, so fifteen minutes does it for me. If you prefer them soft and chewy, ten to twelve minutes should do it. And for somewhere in between, go for thirteen to fourteen minutes.
Having said that, oven temperatures vary wildly, so how long they need exactly very much depends on the oven you’re using.
Leave to firm up for a minute or so, then use a slice to transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool.
Alternatively scoff them warm straight out of the oven. They make a delicious dessert served with ice cream.
How To Store Homemade Cookies
Most homemade cookies store well for around four days. You must keep them at room temperature in an airtight container. Tins or glass jars are best. I line my tin first with baking parchment or greaseproof paper which seems to help keep them fresher. Just make sure your cookies have cooled completely before storing.
Cookies also store well in the freezer. Place cooled cookies on a tray in a single layer and leave for an hour or so to freeze. Then transfer them to a freezer tub or bag and they will keep for a couple of months.
Take out as many as you like and leave them to defrost at room temperature. If they’re softer than they should be, pop them into a hot oven or air fryer for two to three minutes.
These vegan chocolate chip cookies behave just like any other in this respect.
Other Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes You Might Like
- Chewy apricot cookies with white chocolate chips
- Chocolate chip oat cookies
- Chocolate chunk brazil nut cookies
- Chocolate drops
- Skillet cookie with chocolate chips (vegan)
- Tiger nut chocolate chip cookies (vegan)
Keep in Touch
Thank you for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make these vegan chocolate chip cookies, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do you have any recommendations or advice for making vegan biscuits?
Please rate the recipe. If you post pictures of your creations on social media, use the hashtag #tinandthyme so I can see them.
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If you’d like more cookie and biscuit recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.
Choclette x
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 65 g vegan butter or coconut oil – softened (I used my homemade vegan butter)
- 50 g light muscovado sugar or light brown sugar
- 50 g golden caster sugar
- 1 pinch fine sea or rock salt
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp plant milk of choice (I used soy milk)
- 150 g flour I used half wholemeal flour and half white spelt flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 90 g vegan chocolate use good quality chocolate chips, or cut a bar into various size chunks and slithers as I did
- sea salt flakes for sprinkling (optional) (I used smoked sea salt flakes)
Instructions
- Cream the butter or oil together with the sugars and salt until light in colour and fluffy in texture. You can do this by hand with a mixing bowl and wooden spoon or use electric beaters, if you prefer.65 g vegan butter, 50 g light muscovado sugar, 50 g golden caster sugar, 1 pinch fine sea or rock salt
- Beat in the vanilla extract followed by your chosen plant milk.½ tsp vanilla extract, 2 tbsp plant milk of choice
- Sieve in the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and work it in to the butter mixture. It will make a stiff dough. Make sure to add any bran that's left in the sieve.150 g flour, ½ tsp baking powder, ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- Lastly, work in the chocolate chips.90 g vegan chocolate
- Set the oven to 180℃ (160℃ fan, 350℉, Gas 4).
- Take heaped teaspoons of the dough and roll it into balls between the palms of your hands. Place on a lined baking tray, spaced well apart. I made eighteen, but somewhere between that and sixteen is fine.
- Flatten the balls slightly, then sprinkle the tops with a few flakes of sea salt, if liked.sea salt flakes
- Place in the fridge for half an hour to firm up. This helps to stop them spreading too much.
- Bake on the middle shelf of your preheated oven for ten to fifteen minutes* or until the cookies have flattened somewhat and are cracked and golden all over, but not brown.
- Leave to firm up for a minute or so, then use a slice to transfer them to a wire rack to cool. Alternatively scoff them warm straight out of the oven.
- Serve warm, with or without ice cream or enjoy cold as a snack at any time.
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