Authors: Terry Hope Isa Chandra;Romero Moskowitz
Tags: #Best cookbooks
Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar: 100 Dairy-Free Recipes for Everyone's Favorite Treats (5 page)
DUTCH-PROCESSED COCOA:
“Dutched” chocolate has undergone a Ph-altering pro - cess, resulting in mellow-but-complex chocolate flavor and deepening of the chocolate’s color. We call specifically for Dutch-processed cocoa in many recipes, and popular brands like Droste are available in well-stocked supermarkets.
“Dutched” chocolate has undergone a Ph-altering pro - cess, resulting in mellow-but-complex chocolate flavor and deepening of the chocolate’s color. We call specifically for Dutch-processed cocoa in many recipes, and popular brands like Droste are available in well-stocked supermarkets.
UNSWEETENED COCOA POWDER:
This is what you’ll see most often in the baking section—your standard Hershey’s or Ghirardelli is just good old unsweetened cocoa powder. It has a light color and a pure chocolate taste.
This is what you’ll see most often in the baking section—your standard Hershey’s or Ghirardelli is just good old unsweetened cocoa powder. It has a light color and a pure chocolate taste.
BLACK COCOA POWDER:
This is a specialty cocoa that adds an even deeper color and bittersweet chocolate notes to baked goods. Black cocoa powder is made when cocoa is “super” Dutch-processed until it reaches a black, sooty color (though it doesn’t have the most intense chocolate flavor). Never use only black cocoa powder in a recipe; just a few tablespoons combined with regular cocoa powder create an ideal blend of rich dark “Oreo” color and chocolate flavor.
This is a specialty cocoa that adds an even deeper color and bittersweet chocolate notes to baked goods. Black cocoa powder is made when cocoa is “super” Dutch-processed until it reaches a black, sooty color (though it doesn’t have the most intense chocolate flavor). Never use only black cocoa powder in a recipe; just a few tablespoons combined with regular cocoa powder create an ideal blend of rich dark “Oreo” color and chocolate flavor.
SEMISWEET CHOCOLATE:
For extra-smooth chocolate depth, we occasionally use melted semisweet chocolate. See ESPRESSO FUDGE BROWNIES (page 130) for the uses and wonderful effects of a little melted chocolate in a vegan brownie! In chip or square form, semisweet chocolate makes cookies extra rich and moist by delivering cocoa butter’s excellent texture to your baked goods.
For extra-smooth chocolate depth, we occasionally use melted semisweet chocolate. See ESPRESSO FUDGE BROWNIES (page 130) for the uses and wonderful effects of a little melted chocolate in a vegan brownie! In chip or square form, semisweet chocolate makes cookies extra rich and moist by delivering cocoa butter’s excellent texture to your baked goods.
With most any chocolate products, you get what you pay for. Sure, that Prada knockoff clutch purse looks fine, but you don’t have to eat it. Cheap chocolate and cocoa powder taste cheap, and nobody wants to be educated about your inner cheapskate by biting into your homemade brownies. More expensive, higher-quality brands will make an impact. Since vegan goods go without the ingredients that usually flavor recipes (namely butter and eggs), this is something to consider, so feel good about spending a little extra on chocolate (and extracts, too) when you’re baking to impress!
CHOCOLATE CHIPS AND FRIENDSChocolate chips are about as iconic a cookie ingredient as one can get. Perhaps the biggest thing to look for when shopping for chips is to insure you’re buying a vegan product sans dairy ingredients such as butter oil, whey, or nonfat dried milk solids. Luckily there are more and more excellent vegan chips out there. What we said about buying quality chocolate generally rings true here, too, but sometimes you can get away with slightly less spendy chips if the rest of your ingredients are top notch (but don’t get carried away, Cheapy McCheapster!).
Chocolate chips come in all kinds of varieties these days, our go-to chip being semisweet. Bittersweet works, too, it just has a lower sugar content than semisweet and it’s a bit harder to find vegan bittersweet chips. Chocolate chunks are a fun alterna-chip when you want to bite into a big mouthful of chocolate. On the other hand, sometimes adorable mini chocolate chips are just the thing to elevate your tiny little cookies to the super-cute stratosphere. For the longest time, vegan white chocolate chips were impossible to come by, but now you can just pay a visit to a good online vegan boutique or even a kosher grocery (see notes on shopping, beginning on page 19). Another hard-to-come-by-but-worth-the-search chip is accidentally vegan butterscotch chips that come alive (in a yummy, not creepy zombie way) in oatmeal cookies. Look for them in large supermarket chains, often re-labeled as the “generic” supermarket brand. Sometimes other exciting twists on vegan chips such as vegan chocolate coffee chips show up online, so grab ’em while they’re hot.
No discussion of cookie candy chips is complete without carob chips. The famous old-school un-chocolate is really something to be experienced so why not give it a try in 21ST-CENTURY CAROB CHIP COOKIES (page 94). Just be sure to read the ingredients to check for vegan-ness; sometimes carob chips contain nonfat dry milk or other dairy solids.
NUTS AND SEEDSNuts and seeds of all kinds are all favorite mix-ins to cookies. Grated coconut, either sweetened flake or unsweetened dried, gives a lot of texture to cookies (similar in bulk to oatmeal) along with that unmistakable coconut flavor. The easiest way to add nuts to any cookie is to roughly chop them (using a chef’s knife is ideal for controlling the size of nut pieces) and fold them in toward the end. Chopped walnuts, peanuts, macadamias, pecans, almonds, and hazelnuts are at home in most any cookie. Occasionally we grind up almonds, pecans, or walnuts with a food processor and mix them into dough to create a fine crumb and rich, nutty flavor. We store nuts in the fridge to keep them fresh, and sometimes even in the freezer if we’ve got a metric ton that we won’t be finishing off anytime soon.
“BUT WHAT DO YOU USE INSTEAD OF EGGS?”THIS MAY BE the second-most common question after, “But where do you get your protein?” when the topic of eating vegan comes up. Here’s an idea ... make those questioners a batch of cookies and they’ll marvel at how baking is possible beyond the chicken and the egg. There are several things we use to replace eggs in baking, and we switch it up depending on the desired fllavor or texture.We love to use ground flax seeds to help hold together dense cookie dough loaded with whole grains, nuts, or chips. Cornstarch or arrowroot/tapioca flour binds more delicate cookies. Sometimes we just leave it out and let the gluten in the flour or the melding of baked sugar and fats do all the work. What we don’t require are the premixed powdered vegan “egg substitutes” sometimes used in vegan baking. They’re just a blend of starches anyway and require mixing with water. Why buy yet another ingredient when you can just as easily get the same effects with the stuff you probably already have in your pantry?
A few seeds show up in these recipes. Ground flax seeds appear frequently but for reasons other than might be expected. When ground flax is beaten with a little liquid, it forms a viscous gel that conveniently behaves much like eggs and can provide binding and structure in cookies. Especially useful when cookie dough contains plenty of chunky ingredients (oats, fruits) or whole-grain flour.
For the best-looking results we like to use ground golden flax seed (also called flax seed meal) because the color blends in seamlessly, like a ninja in the night.
Sesame seeds, poppy seeds, pumpkin seeds (pepitas), or sunflower seeds are great additions for boosting flavor, crunch, and nutrition, too!
DRIED FRUITHere’s another mix-in item you can experiment with in any given cookie recipe without much effect on baking chemistry. So what we’re saying here is that if you’re a raisinhater (why, we don’t know), try substituting dried cranberries. Some of our favorites that typically go into cookies: raisins of all kinds (Thompson, golden, red flame) and dried cranberries, cherries, apricots, papaya, figs, apples, and pineapple, chopped as needed to get morsel-size bits.
EXTRACTSIt’s been said many times many ways: buy the best-quality extracts you can afford. Since vegan baked goods forgo animal products, extracts play a vital role in flavoring up your goodies. You can’t go wrong by investing in a big bottle of pure vanilla extract, so read that label carefully and avoid artificial vanilla (also known as vanillin). And almond extract is not just for almond-flavored things anymore! It adds sweetly nutty, fruity notes to chocolate baked goods and more depth to plain old vanilla ones. Beyond that there’s a whole paradise of extracts to choose from ... most of the time we use them in addition to vanilla to round out the entire flavor profile of any given cookie. Some of our favorite extracts include: chocolate, coffee, lemon, orange, mint, maple, and coconut.
LEAVENING AGENTSImportant for creating volume, baking powder and baking soda are essential to most recipes. The most crucial thing is to make sure you’re not using a batch of either that’s so old you don’t remember when you bought it, as leavening agents slowly lose their chemical strength over time. Cream of tartar is an old-fashioned leavening agent that isn’t used much anymore, but we like to use it in CITY GIRL SNICKERDOODLES (page 46) for nostalgia’s sake.
SALTEven sweets need a dash of salt to enliven and balance out flavors. Regular old table salt is just fine for baking, as is fine-ground sea salt. Once in a while a dash of fancy gourmet salt—like fleur de sel—makes a difference if sprinkled very lightly on top of cookies, as in CARAMEL PECAN BARS (page 111), for the exciting variation of SALTED CARAMEL PECAN BARS (page 113)!
LET’S GO SHOPPING ONLINE!Shopping online for ingredients—either hard-to-find vegan items or specialty baking stuff—makes more sense than ever. Below are a few of our favorite resources. Whether you live in the country or the middle of a bustling metropolis, you’ll love the convenience and selection.
Baker’s Catalogue at King Arthur FlourGet your black cocoa powder and delightful Dutch and natural cocoa powder blends here along with specialty high-quality flavor extracts, espresso powder, and top-notch baking tools. They also sell the coveted mini-chocolate chip.
Bob’s Red MillIt’s no secret we love Bob’s vast selection of whole-grain flours and freshly ground flax seeds. Everything from whole wheat pastry to gluten-free blends are at your disposal.
Food Fight! Vegan GroceryHome to vegan white chocolate chips and puffy vegan marshmallows!
Pangea Vegan StorePangea carries their own brand of vegan white chocolate chips along with other vegan baking supplies.
SHOPPING WITH PANTS: OFF-LINE SHOPPINGVegan baking is one of those things that usually requires a special in-person shopping trip now and then.
We recommend first getting familiar with your local vegan-friendly food co-op or health food store if you haven’t already to make shopping for supplies all the easier. If you’re just starting your vegan-baking shopping voyage and aren’t sure where to go in your neighborhood, websites like
greenpeople.org
or a few Google searches are helpful. Okay, it’s not totally off-line shopping anymore, but what do you expect in this day ’n’ age?
greenpeople.org
or a few Google searches are helpful. Okay, it’s not totally off-line shopping anymore, but what do you expect in this day ’n’ age?
Whole Foods Market carries their own brand of specially labeled vegan and fair-trade sugar and vegan chocolate chips. They’re also a mostly reliable source of vegan, nonhydrogenated Earth Balance shortening and buttery baking sticks. As long as you can resist spending your entire paycheck here you’re doing just fine.
The hunt for vegan butterscotch chips, a favorite topic on the vegan Internet (see it to believe it), can actually yield results if you happen to live near a Food Lion or Price Chopper supermarket (in the eastern part of the United States). As of this writing these national chains carry accidentally vegan butterscotch baking chips, typically branded as the generic store brand. Since they’re chock full of not-too-great hydrogenated oils, we don’t recommend eating these every day (or every other), but a handful tossed into any oatmeal cookie in this book (hint hint, COWBOY COOKIES, page 48) can be a fun special-occasion treat. Be sure to always read ingredients, though, as these things can change in our crazy, mixed-up world.
Kosher grocery stores (both online and off) can also be interesting places to find more accidentally vegan candies and chocolate chips. Look for products labeled Parve (or Pareve/ Parevine) for starters to insure dairy-free. Since online stores may not list ingredients on their websites, an in-person shopping trip (plus some ingredient label reading) can help you locate vegan chocolate chips, sometimes even in fun flavors such as coffee and mint.
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