My Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Okay guys, I'm baking again! This is out of my comfort zone, since measuring has never been something I enjoy -- I normally just throw food into a dish until it tastes good -- but baking requires measuring, and I love to learn, so I might as well learn how to bake! I didn't use nuts in my cookies, because of my son's allergy to nuts (just breathing them could be dangerous) but you could add nuts in place of some of the chocolate chips if you like. These cookies were about as jam-packed with chocolate chips as they could be -- I had to push the ones that were falling out back into the cookies again before I popped them into the oven. I regret using the organic cane sugar, though I did not use much. I had bought it at the beginning of my vegan journey before I discovered that many cane sugars are not vegan because animal bones are used in their filtering (I hope this organic sugar wasn't filtered that way!) You could replace the sugar with a sweetener of your choice. I will be reinventing these cookies soon using agave instead of sugar -- I will just have to play around with the solid-to-liquid ratio. One thing I do love about these cookies is the date sugar. Date sugar is truly only crushed dates. It adds such a subtle, earthy sweetness, and goes really well with the in-your-face chocolate flavor. Here's my recipe:

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:
2 c. oats
3/4 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1/3 c. date sugar
1/4 c. granulated unbleached organic cane sugar
1/2 tsp. salt (I used large grain kosher)
2 tsp. baking soda
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 c. safflower oil
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. silk chocolate soymilk (or plant milk of your choice)
1/2 c. Ghirardelli non-dairy chocolate chips

Cookies before baking

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine dry ingredients except chocolate chips in one bowl, combine wet ingredients in another bowl, then mix the two together. Fold in the chocolate chips. On parchment-lined baking sheets, scoop about a tablespoon of the mixture for each cookie, spacing about an inch and a half apart. These cookies will not melt or spread, so squash them flat a little bit before baking. Bake for 10-11 minutes. Let sit on the baking sheet for two minutes, then remove to a cooling rack.
Makes 24-28 cookies, depending on size.


Though I rarely eat sweets anymore (my system doesn't handle them very well) my husband definitely does, and he enjoyed these vegan cookies, which were much more wholesome than what he would otherwise be eating. I enjoyed them too, though I purposely limited the quantity and was mindful of not eating them too late in the day, lest they contribute to a sleepless night. The kids prefer their white sugar cookies, so they didn't touch these little treasures. I wonder if I could invent a fabulous plain white vegan  "sugar" cookie they would like?  Hmmm, stay tuned . . .