C is for Cookie

Have you ever thought of following a vegan diet?  Or maybe have a need to go dairy-free but still want to indulge in delicious treats?   

First things first.  People that follow a vegan diet often refer to themselves as vegan.  What exactly is a vegan? Merriam-Webster defines a vegan as a strict vegetarian who consumes no animal food or dairy products.  Some vegans extend the concept past diet and exclude all animal products, such as leather. 

Why go vegan?  There are many reasons from concern about the welfare of animals to health issues, including allergies and intolerances. More recently, diet and weight loss has driven vegan diets into the mainstream with a crop of books released promoting it as the one way to get and stay skinny.

A well-targeted google search will provide you with more information than digestible in one sitting.  But, before you go off to google, let’s discuss some of the aftermath from my dappling into veganism.  Mainly, vegan baking.  That’s right; baking without eggs, butter or milk.  Impossible you say? 

Here let me show you….

Interested? 

These cookies are easy to assemble and bake, taking just a few minutes.  They make a great after school snack and are portable, making them easy enough to pack up and feed to the kids after the big game.  The maple syrup in them keep the consistency nice and moist; so they keep in the fridge all week.  Replacing the sugar with baking stevia trims down the sugar rush without sacrificing the taste. 

We are not huge fans of artificial sweetener but I don’t consider this brand of stevia a typical, chemical laden artificial sweetener.  The stevia used in these cookies is not the same mainstream variety commonly found in the grocery store aisles.  I’ve used the NuNaturals brand stevia for many years.  It is the only one I’ve found that doesn’t have a bitter aftertaste.  The baking variety has added fiber and is best used in cakes, cookies, pies, breads or any other baking that doesn’t require sugar to crystalize. 

And if you still aren’t convinced, stevia is a white-flowered tender perennial native to Paraguay.  You can grow it!  I bought a stevia plant at a local herb festival a month ago.  I’m hoping it will take so that we can bring you posts showing how it’s being used.

If you don’t want to use the baking stevia called for in this recipe, it is best to substitute with unrefined sugar.

For the cookies, here’s what you need:

Dry ingredients

¼ cup baking stevia

¼ cup mini chocolate chips

¼ tsp salt

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

2 tbsp almond meal / flour

¼ tsp cinnamon

¼ cup maple syrup

Wet ingredients

¼ cup maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla

¼ cup olive oil

Up to 2 tbsp of water

Preheat oven to 350

Combine dry ingredients (stevia, chocolate chips, salt, flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and almond meal.) 

 Stir with a whisk or sift together.

Mix vanilla, olive oil and maple syrup.

Combine wet and dry until mixture is moist.  Add up to 2 tbsp water to obtain appropriate consistency.  

The mix should look like this....

Scoop and drop onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. A medium scoop will yield approximately 10-12 cookies. 

 

Bake for 10 minutes.  Remove pan and let sit for 1 minute then transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool. 

Enjoy with a cold glass of milk....cow's milk or not...you decide....