Wicked easy vegan chocolate chip cookies

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: June is a bitch, and therefore gets riled up over the simplest things, one of which is the way folks like to label their recipes ZE BEST without any sort of factual justification for the claim. And we all know only America’s Test Kitchen is allowed to do that.

And in keeping with my totally non-hypocritical nature (LOL), I have dutifully NOT labeled this recipe as “best chocolate chip cookies evahhh” or some such bullshit. Instead, I have slapped it with the claim that it is “wicked easy”, not to be confused with the god-awful book that was almost as horrible as The Fault in Our Stars:

DON'T REMIND ME. source

Of course, the difficulty of this recipe actually depends on your definition of “easy”. It might be the culinary equivalent of K2 if you’re like my brother, for whom heating up frozen chicken nuggets is a feat worthy of a thousand or so pats on the back. It might be a pitiful little flea of a recipe if you are, say, Thomas Keller.

But that title is mostly a reflection of my New England-ness. Obviously.

I think that it is good for a food blog to have a few basic recipes such as this one, a few classics that you can return to again and again in times of need inconvenient but irrepressible desire for chocolate chip cookies or zucchini bread or vanilla cake or whatever it is you want. Because on the inside, we’re all pregnant woman with weird cravings that happen at really, really bad times. We’re all in this together.

THAT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL AND TOUCHING OMG OMG source

These particular cookies are for another recipe, similar to the chocolate wafers I made three posts ago and holy shit that was three posts ago already? What am I doing with my life (answer: procrastibaking)? Initially I thought of mashing them with the full post, thus creating a two thousand-word monstrosity of a recipe that no one in their right mind would attempt to make—but thankfully sanity seized me by the lapel and reminded me that it might be a good idea to put it in a separate post. To make things nice and simple.

So here is that post. Are you happy, sanity? You can let go now.

Sanity's a bitch.

This is probably my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe at the moment, if that declaration means anything at all these days. It’s got loads of chocolate, for starters. And then there is the addictive, caramelized flavor that you only get in chocolate chip cookies, even stronger here than in most recipe variations thanks to the molasses-packed dark brown sugar. If you follow my suggestion and make big, round cookies with flat tops, you’ll get nice fat cookies with chewy centers and crispy edges.

That unique textural contrast, right there, is the Holy Grail of the chocolate chip cookie. We’ve found it, my friends. We’ve found it.

AND NOW WE SHALL FEAST ON THE BLOOD OF OUR ENEMIES!

Haha whut? Here’s the recipe.

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Wicked easy vegan chocolate chip cookies

Adapted from Taste of Home

Ingredients

280 grams • dark brown sugar • 1 ¼ cups

108 grams • vegetable oil • ½ cup

90 grams • nondairy milk • ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons

50 grams • granulated sugar • ¼ cup

60 grams • unsweetened applesauce • ¼ cup

8 grams • vanilla extract • 2 teaspoons

280 grams • all-purpose flour • 2 ¼ cups

4 grams • baking soda • 1 teaspoon

4 grams • salt • ¾ teaspoon

160 grams • nondairy chocolate chips • 1 cup

Instructions

In a large bowl, whisk together dark brown sugar, vegetable oil, nondairy milk, granulated sugar, applesauce, and vanilla. Gently stir in all-purpose flour, baking soda, and salt just until combined. Fold in chocolate chips.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Drop ¼ cup-sized blobs of batter on sheets, keeping at least three inches apart, and smooth them out. You want the cookies to be round but flat on the tops. Chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour (preferred), or freeze for at least 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Bake cookies for about 15 minutes, or until the edges are browned and the tops are dry. Let cool completely on baking sheets. Nosh.

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All mine.

So let’s just pretend right now that those cookies are about to be eaten by smiling children who will dip them in tall glasses of milk and munch like stoners at three o’ clock in the morning as their adoring mothers watch them and try not to think about stoners at three o’ clock in the morning. Just imagine that blissful Utopian image right now and forget that alas, Baby June has other plans for these innocent little cookies.

What, exactly, are those plans?

You shall see, my friends. You shall see.