Voices > The Way the Cookie Crumbles
The Way the Cookie Crumbles
The vegan-organic version of classic chocolate chip cookies gets put to the test
By Scottie Tuska
We know organic chickens taste better than their chemical-pumped cousins, but what about goodies at the bakery counter? How do you make a vegan organic chocolate chip cookie taste as good as the Toll House recipe we all love? I put this question to the test in my kitchen, and the answer I found is more complex than following a recipe.
The Ingredients
When you are baking vegan organic, you are going to pick up some strange ingredients. With ordinary chocolate chip cookies your wet ingredients are traditional household items: eggs, butter, vanilla extract, white and brown sugar. The organic vegan chocolate chip cookies require sweeteners such as organic molasses, pure maple syrup and unrefined sugar along with organic canola oil and organic vanilla extract. These wet ingredients’ job is not only to sweeten, but also to keep the cookies moist and provide the robust flavor that normally comes from eggs and butter.
The unbleached all-purpose flour you’ll use for vegan organic cookies is a bit dry, so the recipe compensates by adding more liquid. Dryness is a common complaint when making organic baked goods, but with a good recipe, your cookies will turn out moist enough.
When choosing chocolate chips for the vegan recipe, you can go with carob chips, but these won’t taste like your grandma’s chocolate chip cookies. Carob is often used as a substitute for cocoa but doesn’t taste as chocolatey. I went with the carob chips in the organic recipe and Nestlé Toll House for the back-of-the-package batch.
The Price
Eating vegan organic is not cheap, but I suggest you go to a co-op and buy everything in bulk. Not only can you reuse the packaging, but it really brings down the cost of organic groceries. Still, the total for all the vegan organic groceries at a co-op came to a staggering $36.21, compared to $21.27 total at a supermarket.
The sticker price may come as a shock, but in both cases these ingredients are likely to last you for several batches. In some cases, organic was actually cheaper. Organic Vanilla Extract cost $4.89 while McCormick Vanilla Extract cost a $6.43. The opposite can be said for some of the other ingredients. Unbleached flour is $4.99 for five pounds, while bleached flour cost $2.75.
The Results
When I first tasted the vegan cookies, they were not enjoyable. The carob chips just aren’t tasty when they’re still soft. I’m not sure if I got used to them, but they’re definitely better a day later, once they develop a better consistency. They also happen to be perfect in terms of shape and texture.
Still, the back-of-the-package chocolate chip cookies tasted a lot better. There really is no comparison for me. Maybe it’s nostalgia, but there is nothing like a good chocolate chip cookie and a big old glass of milk. If you’re a vegan, you’re going to love the organic cookies, but most of us will still prefer the Nestlé Tollhouse recipe.
Cooking with vegan organic ingredients comes down to personal choice. If you are willing to spend more money, you can get a quality product. It’s not going to be the same, but it’s definitely something to try.