The Best Chocolate Cookie (vegan, lactose-free)

Do you know how much you get stuck with something and it needs find a solution? So this Accidentally Vegan Chocolate Cookie was one of those cases.

A original idea was to find a alternative cookie recipe: not to use butter. For reasons of cost, butter is very expensive. And I didn’t want to use culinary margarine also. Therefore, she is accidentally vegan.

It all started when I saw a recipe for vegan cookie who claimed to be the Best of all. I’ve already looked at it with a bit of hesitation and without hope, because in many vegan recipes they use alternative ingredients that I don’t have at home, they are expensive or difficult to find. And as you know, if it’s expensive, it’s difficult for me to buy it.

To my surprise, it didn’t require any different ingredients. Nothing of flaxseed gelnothing of ten times or guar. Just the basic ingredients that practically everyone already has at home: flour, sugar, oil and so on.

I got excited and made the recipe. Every bite was a tear of… disappointment. The texture wasn’t the worst, but the flavor… The dough itself was neutral, with no flavor whatsoever. Or better, almost anything. Due to the excess yeast and bicarbonate, the cookie left an unpleasant aftertaste.

I felt for the vegan azamigas and ozamigos, I suffered, you see. But I insisted that I wanted one good vegan cookie recipe. I ended up doing 5 cookie recipes in a week.

Cookie Comparison

• Butter: based on the famous Nestlé Toll House, made with eggs and butter. But with changes, more brown sugar and the butter is burnt (beurre noisette). Crispy on the edges and soft in the center. Flavor and texture standard. (SEE: American Chocolate Cookie: Chocolate Chip Cookies)
• Oil+H2O: based on an English confectionery, oil+water and without eggs. Soft and good texture; neutral dough flavor with an excess of yeast/bicarbonate, the aftertaste was reminiscent of pretzel/Stiksy. That was my disappointment.
• LíQ+Oil: based on a vegan blog, vegetable milk+oil and no eggs. Texture remained cakey because of the yeast and preparation order (liquid comes in later and needs to be added, it develops too much gluten); flavor got better. I used coconut milk because it was more AFFORDABLE and add a little more fat, any liquid could be used. But as I’ve already made it with water before, you can tell the difference even though it doesn’t taste like coconut.
• Coco+FB: my formulation, coconut milk + yeast + bicarbonate and no eggs. The preparation order is similar to that of Butter to avoid becoming cakey. Texture similar to Butter and Oil+H2O; fuller-bodied flavor (coconut does not appear), but no dairy flavor due to no butter.
• Dark vs. Clear: same recipe, but with different colored brown sugar; the final color of the cookie is changed. The size is because of the portion.

Vegan Cookie: Water and Plant-Based Milk

The vast majority of recipes call for some type of liquid in the dough, some say it can be any vegetable milk or even water. In my tests, particularly, I found that with water something is missing. The dough is already very neutral as it does not have the dairy flavors of butter, adding water increases it.

I opted for coconut milk because it has a reasonable cost (depending on the brand, it can be expensive), adds a little more fat to the dough and is sold practically anywhere. In addition to the bottles being smaller, you don’t need to buy 1 liter.

Vegan Cookie: Which chocolate to use?

Here’s the real recipe hurdle: find vegan chocolate in Brazil.

It exists, but it is not that easy to find and it also costs more. In the recipe, I know two brands of dark chocolate who don’t necessarily claim to be vegan. But reading the packaging everything indicates that they are, no sense of do not contain any ingredients of animal origin. But they may have cross contamination.

Semi-sweet chocolate may not contain milk, but it may contain milk. anhydrous milk fat (read: dehydrated butter). Which deviates a little from the purpose of being vegan, but still meets the criteria of the recipe being less expensive.

If you really want a 100% vegan cookie, you’ll have to pay close attention to the ingredients used, if that’s your thing, okay?