I made vegan cookies!!

I have a colleague who’s a vegan. I also have a vegan cookbook!

I’ve used the book before and it’s great but I’ve only made the soups from it, and not ventured into the sweet section.

My colleague can’t eat the other things I take into the office, so I decided to make something she could enjoy when I found the banana and chocolate chip cookie recipe.

If you’re vegan or you just want to eat a bit healthier, I would really recommend this book – it’s by Thug Kitchen.  The soups are great, and there are loads of main courses in here which also look amazing, but which I haven’t got round to making yet.

For these, instead of eggs, you bind the ingredients with puréed bananas. And then you add some chocolate – in my case I found some chocolate buttons in the ‘free from’ aisle in the supermarket. I wasn’t taking any chances and because it said ‘suitable for vegans’ on the back, I went for it.

After I’d chilled the dough in the fridge for a bit, I shaped the cookies and pressed them down. I cooked them for 10 minutes, took them out and flattened them with a spatula as they’d puffed up a bit, and then popped them back in for two minutes.

They didn’t really smell when I was baking them, but they tasted amazing! You could really taste the banana and vanilla, but they did have a weird aftertaste which I think was the bicarbonate of soda.

Comments from the office included:

“Because they’re vegan you think they’re going to be awful but they’re actually really nice – not like a cookie I’ve had before.”

“I was expecting it to be more chocolatey.”

“For someone who hasn’t had chocolate in a long time it was delicious.” (This was the vegan, not that she was biased but seeing as she’s not had any baked goods for about three months, I think she would have liked whatever I made)

“I like that they taste breakfasty so you don’t have to feel too bad about eating them.”

And finally: “Just a suggestion but use dark chocolate next time.”

So, bearing in mind those comments I made them again with half the amount of baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. I used the same chocolate because I didn’t want to take any chances and accidentally feed my vegan colleague something that’s not vegan.

In the interest of being open and transparent, test two took place literally a year after I’d made the first batch – I don’t know what happened to be honest. But I cannot carry this blog post over for another year so let’s just get it published!!

I am aware this post may be seen by some as a rude interruption of my Christmas content, so in order to make this more Christmas appropriate, here are the cookies on a festive red plate with a Santa in the background.

It counts as Christmas content now.

What did I think? I thought these were more cakey than they were before, but definitely better with the updated recipe. They have a great flavour, so my advice would be that if you have this book and you make these cookies, trust me and use half the amount of baking powder and bicarbonate of soda that the recipe lists.

I really like these and I would make them again. Everyone in my office thinks they’re a ‘healthy version’ of a cookie because they’re vegan so I won’t break their hearts and tell them how much sugar is in them.