Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

(This is an awful photo. Oops.)

This past July I met up with some friends for some intimate shows put on by one of our favorite bands, two in New Jersey and two in Vienna, VA. In between the two New Jersey shows, my friend Laura and I headed into NYC. Laura is gluten-free and vegan, so naturally one of our stops was at Babycakes, a vegan, mostly gluten-free bakery.

I'll have to admit, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I eat a lot of vegan food, but I'd never really had any vegan baked goods before, let alone gluten-free ones. After one bite of a carrot cupcake, I was in love. I'd gladly live the rest of my life eating only donuts, cupcakes, cookies, brownies and muffins from that bakery. If you aren't vegan, I promise you won't miss the butter or eggs at all. You'll forget they ever existed.

Yesterday I picked up the Babycakes cookbook and made these delicious cookies. They are light, crispy and have a faint coconut flavor from the coconut oil. If you aren't gluten-free, you should be able to use regular all-purpose flour and skip the xanthan gum.



Double Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from the Babycakes Cookbook

1 cup coconut oil (measure when melted)
1¼ cups evaporated cane juice (or sugar)
¹⁄³ cup homemade applesauce or store-bought unsweetened applesauce
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not dutch processed)
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
1½ cups bob’s red mill gluten-free all-purpose baking flour (or regular all-purpose flour if you don't have a problem with gluten)
¼ cup flax meal
1 teaspoon baking soda
1½ teaspoons xanthan gum (skip if you use regular all-purpose flour)
1 cup vegan chocolate chips (or regular)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Combine the coconut oil, evaporated cane juice, applesauce, cocoa powder, salt, and vanilla in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, flax meal, baking soda, and xanthan gum. Add the dry ingredients to the wet in two batches, mixing until just incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips with a wooden spoon.

Form the dough into balls about 1 inch in diameter and press down slightly onto parchment covered cookie sheets. Bake for 14 minutes, turning the pans 180 degrees after 9 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes on the sheet and then transfer to a wire rack. If you don't want to bake all the cookies, you can freeze the cookie dough balls and bake later.

Makes 3 dozen cookies.