Cooking with Lisa: Vegan Chocolate Snickerdoodles

Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.

Hi everyone! I hope you’re all enjoying the warmer weather (depending on when this is published, it might be freezing tomorrow, I don’t know).

I’ve been baking a lot lately and feeling weird about making things in smaller batches. I’ve gotten used to making hundreds of cookies on Saturdays for Sharples and now I cannot handle making two dozen cookies. Who is that even going to feed?

I found this recipe in a vegan cookies cookbook I have called Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar (which sounds vaguely sexual), by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.

I liked these cookies a lot, even though they aren’t what I usually go for.
Topping:

1/3 cup sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Cookies:

½ cup canola oil

1 cup sugar

¼ cup maple syrup

3 tbsp nondairy milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 2/3 cup lfour

½ cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp cinnamon

DISCLAIMER ABOUT THE INGREDIENTS: THESE SPECIFIC BRANDS MAY NOT BE VEGAN. IF YOU ARE VEGAN, FIGURE OUT YOUR OWN DAMN VEGAN BRANDS. THANK YOU AND I LOVE YOU.

Get all of your ingredients together. This didn’t have anything really unusual in it, but I forgot about the nondairy milk. I borrowed from someone’s in the Kosher kitchen, so, if that was yours, let me know if you want me to give you three tablespoons of coconut milk back.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together the oil, sugar, maple syrup and milk. The original recipe recommended using a fork, which I did, but a spoon or a whisk or something would work just as well.

Add in the vanilla extract. The original recipe had chocolate extract, a product I do not and never have owned, but using vanilla worked totally fine.

In a separate bowl, sift/mix/shove together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Warning: Cocoa powder is weird and will potentially get all over you and your workspace and your computer.

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring as you do so. If you are alone, it might be easier to add a little bit at a time and to take breaks to stir. If you have a friend, have them pour or stir.

I switched over to mixing by hand, even though it got a little bit messy, near the end. Mix everything together until it is formed into a cohesive dough.

Create the snicker doodle topping.  Mix together the sugar and cinnamon on a plate or in a bowl.

Roll a cookie-sized piece of dough into a ball, then press it into the topping, flattening the dough slightly. Put the dough topping-side up onto your baking sheet.

The recipe recommended using parchment paper, but I was out. These did not end up sticking to the sheet once they were cooled.

Once you’ve filled the baking sheet, put them in the oven for about 10 minutes.

While your cookies bake, clean up around the kitchen. Make sure that you get the cocoa powder from everywhere you “accidentally” flung it.

Watch some YouTube clips of the E! network reality program “Married to Jonas.” It is about Kevin Jonas, the oldest of The Jonas Brothers, and his wife Danielle Jonas. Everyone in the show is boring and awful, and it’s perfect. It is produced by Ryan Seacrest so you know that it is incredible.

Once the cookies are crackly on top and look done enough, take them out of the oven. Let them cool a bit on the tray before transferring them to a drying rack, or a paper towel on the counter if you forgot where the drying racks are.

Give these out to your vegan and nonvegan friends alike!

Next time: browned butter chocolate chip cookies.