Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies

There's no stopping these cookies. Someone who would rather have no other sweet than a chocolate chip cookie, declared that these were better than chocolate chip cookies. And it's true. They are apple-y and gooey in the best possible ways. There are two necessary ingredients that you might have to go out of your way for: Alpine Spiced Apple Cider and vegan caramels. Alpine Cider is an instant cider powder that I found mixed in with the hot chocolate mixes on the shelf of my local Target. I checked a few other places, but didn't see it at Safeway or Giant. You should just go ahead and buy a box, because I have a few more recipes that will help you finish the whole thing off. And while it tastes great in baked goods, I don't recommend mixing it with hot water to drink. Just buy yourself a jug of fresh, locally pressed cider and leave this for the mixing bowl.
The caramels are a different story. There are a few options here. I happen to live only a few miles from the vegan super-center, Pangea, so I drove over after work one weekend and bought a bag of Cocomel vanilla caramels. Also, Spencer's Market has the Cocomel caramel's on sale right now if anyone wants to buy them here! Pangea also has a store brand called VeganSweets that makes caramels, which are delicious but I think not quite as nice as the Cocomel brand. There is also Feed Your Face caramels, which would work really nicely. Lastly, you can just avoid buying them all together and make your own. I love making caramel using this recipe.


Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies
veganized from the Cooking Photographer

1/2 cup Earth Balance
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 packets of Alpine Spiced Apple Cider
1 Ener-G egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
7 oz of vegan caramel, chopped into third inch size pieces.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In your standing mixer, cream the sugar with the Earth Balance. Add in the cider powder and mix until combined. Then add the prepared egg replacer and vanilla. Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix until a thick dough forms. I used a small scoop to portion out the dough. I flatted a scoop of dough with my palm, placed a chunk of caramel in the center, and then topped it with another flattened scoop of dough. I then pinched all the edges together and rolled it the dough back into a ball. Based on the size of your caramels and your scoop, the batch size is variable. But I made 15 cookies.
Bake several inches apart for 12-14 minutes. If you bake them for 12 minutes they will be nice and soft the way I prefer my cookies, but if you bake them for 14 minutes they will be firm. It's up to personal preference.

The only downside with this cookie, is that for the most part my caramel dissolved into the cookie rather than staying a separate layer like I saw in the non-vegan pictures. This could potentially be avoided if you used a really dense homemade caramel? I haven't tried it, but if anyone does I would be interested to see their results. Also if you want a heavier, spiced cider flavor I would definitely add some cinnamon and cloves and what not to the cookie dough. The spice of the cider is definitely washed out by the intense appleyness.

S'mores Stuffed Cookies

I remember seeing a picture of a s'more stuffed chocolate chip cookie for the first time. My first thought was that's TOO much. But the longer I thought about it, the more that I realized that it's perfect. If I can put vegan nutella or chick-o-sticks in a cookie, than a s'more really isn't that different. People put oreos in cookies all the time, right?! And I know that I have made s'mores cookies before, but these are so different. A girl can't ever have too many marshmallows.



S'mores Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes approximately 8 large cookies

1 cup Earth Balance
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tbl Ener-G (beat with 1/4 cup water)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/4 cups unsifted flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
heaping one cup chocolate chips
2 whole graham crackers (Nabisco brand are honey free)
4-6 vegan marshmallows (I used Sweet & Sara, which are slightly larger than Dandies)
1/2 bar dark chocolate

Make your cookie dough first. Break each of your graham crackers into quarters. Cut your marshmallows in halves or leave whole, depending on the amount of gooeyness you want in your cookie. I made mini s'mores similar to the pictures here. Now it's time to wrap those s'mores in cookie dough! I found it easiest to use a large scoop to portion out sixteen pieces of dough on a sheet of parchment. I flattened all of those with my palm, set the mini s'more on top, and set another piece of flattened cookie dough on top. pinch all the edges together, and bake for 12-18 minutes at 350. The baking can be pretty variable depending on how thick your s'mores are.
Be sure to give these cookies plenty of room! They spread like nobody's business. I baked 4 per cookie sheet. I tried to make my cookies a little smaller than the 6-8" ones I had previously seen, but they were still at least 4-6".
Make sure you have plenty of almond milk handy to wash them down.

I'm gonna be honest here. I didn't find these cookies to be near as revolutionary as I expected them to be. I thought they were gonna alter my perspective on baked goods, and I was just a little underwhelmed. If I were going to do this again, I would probably use a sugar cookie dough like I did with the nutella cookies. The piece of chocolate along with all the chocolate chips in the cookies was just not my thing(I know. I can't believe I am saying it either). I also think that the taste & texture of the graham cracker get a little lost in the cookie dough. The texture gets a little moist during the baking, and the brown sugar in the dough sort of covers up the graham taste. So I think that if you used a sugar cookie dough and rolled it in graham cracker crumbs before you baked it, then you would have the real deal. Maybe someone will try it & let me know how it goes?

Chai Shortbread Tea Bag Cookies

I have a serious obsession with cookies lately. All I want to do is make incredibly intricate cookies full of swirls and patterns or shaped by hand or with my a few neat cookie cutters. I have seen pictures of these tea bag cookies floating all around the blogosphere for a few months now. They have been on my to do list since I originally saw them, but I was waiting for the right occasion. One of my friends moved away last month. As someone who likes tea a lot, she likes it even more than I do.
So I broke out the chai spices, the black tea, and got to work with my bench scraper. The recipe that I used for my cookies was decent, but not the best. The cookies didn't have near as much flavor as I was hoping for, even though I added extra spices, vanilla bean, and a few teaspoons of ground tea leaves to the dough. I only chilled the dough for an hour because I was pressed for time, so if I were to try it again I would definitely let it sit for 24 hours to help the flavors develop more. I also suggest melting the Earth Balance, steeping chai tea in it, and then allowing it to cool & resolidify before making the shortbread dough.


After your dough is chilled, you roll it out like any other cut out cookie dough. You have a few options of the cutting process. You could either trace a tea bag on a bit of parchment and cut it out to use as a template or free hand the process. I went for the latter option. You can use a knife, but I found a bench scraper to be the easiest tool to work with. After cutting each tea bag, I poked a hole in the top with a Wilton #5 round tip. I did this largely because I was worried that the cookies would swell a bit after baking and my string would not fit through the holes. If you have thin baker's twine, than you can easily get away with a #3 or #4 if you want them to look a bit daintier.
After baking, I dipped the cookies in dark chocolate thinned with a teaspoon of coconut oil. I threaded my string through the holes and made tags with a bit of fancy paper I had left over from some other craft project.


Overall I definitely think these cookies were a success. They didn't taste exactly like I wanted them too, but their cute factor was an overwhelming win at her going away party. Do you like getting really crafty in the kitchen or do you prefer straight forward baking? Have you seen any other adorable baked goods lately?

M&M cookies

I have been searching for vegan M&M's for quite a while now. For a while the only option was Whizzer's chocolate beans, but they were not ideal. The chocolate was a little bitter, and while it's nice that they were dyed naturally, the colors were a little boring.
I finally heard about Vermont Nut Free Chocolates a few weeks ago and immediately ordered three 16oz bags of their dark chocolate skippers**. After the cost of shipping, it was $25 well spent! They not only look identical to M&Ms but taste exactly the same. I think someone would be hard pressed to tell the difference between them.
I have used most of the first bag making M&M cookies. I have a lot of plans for the remaining candy, but it might end up with me just eating them on the couch while I watch movies.


Vegan M&M Cookies
recipe adapted from Ghiradelli

1 tbl Ener-G powder
1/4 cup water
1 cup Earth Balance
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup Vermont Nut Free dark chocolate skippers

Preheat oven to 350. Combine Ener-G and water and allow to thicken. Cream Earth Balance and sugars. Add egg replacer & vanilla. Slowly mix in flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir in dark chocolate skippers slowly, being careful not to crush the candy shells. Scoop onto silpat or parchment lined baking sheet. Slightly flatten the tops of cookies and bake 10-12 minutes, until edges of the cookies are slightly browned.

These cookies remind me of being a little kid. They are so bright and colorful and satisfying. I think my birthday approaching has me feeling a little nostalgic. I've been watching a lot of children's movies like Hook & Willy Wonka. It's a nice little escape from everyday stress. What's your favorite childhood film?

**A few people have been confused by the Vermont Nut Free Chocolate website. If you read carefully, the ingredients for the dark chocolate skipper are listed immediately after the milk chocolate skipper. You will see that they don't contain any sort of dairy product. There isn't any verification on the sugar (whether it is bone char processed or not), but they are vegan enough for me.

Lavender Shortbread

Spring always messes with my head. Partially because of allergies, but also because of all the weather fluctuations. It's raining, and then a few fours later it's all sunshine. The temperature is all over the place, with really cool mornings and sometimes downright hot afternoons. Shortbread is such a spring treat to me. It's not too sweet, so it's perfect with a cup of tea on a chilly morning or during a rain shower. Yet the lavender adds those subtle floral notes that remind you to keep you chin up because summer is on the way.
I used a recipe very similar to the the shortbread in Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookies Jar or you could use the shortbread crust recipe from Vegan Pie in the Sky. I added 3/4 tbsp of culinary lavender to the dough. If you slightly chop the lavender or at least crush the buds between your fingers before adding it, it will help the flavors release into the dough. I pressed my shortbread into 4" tart pans. I filled them to the top because I wanted a thick cookie. I sprinkled them with vanilla sugar, and baked them for about 35 minutes. The sugar gives the tops a really beautiful shine and nice texture. After they cooled for 30 minutes I removed them from the tart pans, and cut the circles into quarters. If filling the pans as full as I did, you should have 2 full pans, and and then a bit of extra dough.
If eating shortbread by itself isn't your cup of tea, a lavender shortbread crust would really amp up a lemon or berry tart.

Bird's Nest Cupcakes

Spring is rapidly approaching. The last few weeks I have seen birds foraging for the best nest building material, and slowly tucking it away in the tall trees in the corner of my yard. I've even seen a few eggs! Robin's eggs are one of the most beautiful natural colors. Growing up it was even my favorite crayon shade. I was inspired by Bake at 350's cupcakes last year, and knew I would try them out this spring.
Obviously not as lovely as hers, but at least no eggs were broken while I was making them. I used by standby sugar cookie recipe. As I already had a leftover batch of frosting laying around, I opted out of the royal icing decorations. As I was attempting to speckle the eggs, I realized this was a mistake. As Bake at 350 had used royal icing, her speckles smoothly sunk into the icing when the brown dye was mixed with water. As I had used an oil based frosting to ice the cookies, I should have mixed my brown dye with a few drops of oil to have the same effect. My water on top of oil mixture led them to dry in a less than attractive manner, giving them the appearance of moldy cookies as my partner pointed out. OOPS! So now you know. It might be easier to just use royal frosting, which is going to look a lot smoother anyways. So much for being resourceful this time.
Just top your cupcakes with a mound of frosting, roll them in toasted coconut, and stick the mini eggs on toothpicks into the cake. I couldn't mind a mini egg stencil, so I free handed them with a paring knife and tried to smooth the dough's edges with my fingertips prior to baking. I also tried to have lots of various shades in the toasted coconut to make them appear more nest like.
This was a lot of fun, and I'm sure little kids would love getting involved in this project. Have you been crafty in the kitchen lately?

Chick-O-Stick Cookies

I have mentioned a few times before how terrific Chick-O-Sticks are. They are like an amazing vegan, gluten free Butterfinger without the chocolate coating. When you crumble the candy and add them to your chocolate chip cookies, it's also pretty wonderful. The smaller chunks melt, but the larger pieces stay crisp. I added 1 cup of crushed Chick-O-Sticks to a regular sized batch of cookie dough that makes around two dozen 2oz cookies. The results were satisfying.


I still have a bag of mini Chick-O-Sticks left, and just saw that my local corner store has re-stocked their supply too. I have a few ideas for what I am going to do with them next. One involves ice cream!
I hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful weather we had this week. I drank my first iced coffee of the year and even managed to squeeze in a few bike rides. I've definitely got spring fever!

Nutella Stuffed Cookies

Almost a month ago I found a jar of accidentally vegan nutella. I knew I wanted to make with the other half of the jar, but I had to keep it around for a little longer. Just to savor it. I know I can make more now that it's gone, but sometimes I have a bit of problem with kitchen hoarding. As a child I had a play kitchen, and unbeknownst to my mother, I used that kitchen to store cookies and chocolate and all sorts of treats. My secret wasn't revealed until my baby sister found the chocolate, sat down and covered herself & her white dress in it. Sometimes when I open my cupboards I still see that pattern. The visible items tend to be vegan marshmallows, a pound bar of chocolate, waffle cone bowls, and maybe a can of soup peaking through if it's a good week.
So I finally broke the spell and finished the jar. While nutella swirled blondies were good, nutella stuffed cookies were infinitely better! I used a recipe from Cookin' Canuck for guidance, and veganized it by just subbing in Earth Balance and Ener-G. I felt it was fairly reliable as it pretty closely resembled the recipe for chocolate chip cookie dough I use. I was not disappointed. The cookies were soft and chewy, with the nutella staying melted even hours after they had cooled. They were rapidly consumed at a friends birthday party, which leads me to believe that I need to break out my stash of hazelnuts hidden somewhere in that cupboard. There have been several nutella recipes floating around the internet. It's basically just pureeing toasted hazelnuts with either melted chocolate or cocoa powder. If you don't feel like winging it, then I think Chocolate Covered Katie's recipe might be a good place to start.
Rolling the cookies in sugar gave them a wonderful exterior, so I recommend splurging on it this once. Also don't forget to add the salt! It really makes these cookies special. I also gave the cookies a few grinds of pink sea salt while they were still warm to amp up the sweet & salty combo.


Do you find yourself storing away special foods that you can't bear to finish off yet? I can't be the only one who does this. I do at meals too. I have always saved my favorite foods for the last few bites of the meal. Except for when I eat leftover cupcakes for breakfast, that's just starting the day off right.

Confetti Cookies & Strawberry Cream

I remember seeing these cookies on Namely Marly a few months ago when I was in my cookie craze. I forced myself to wait a few weeks to try them and give myself a chance to bake a few non-cookie things. These cookies are so wonderful. Their flavor is subtle & satisfying, and obviously they are adorable.
If you haven't ever made roll out cookies before, I don't think these should be your first attempt. I would practice with a few batches of a simple sugar cookie before you try this dough. As Marly suggested, this dough is infinitely easier to worth with when it is icy cold. I made the dough one night when I had some spare time and kept it in the freezer until I happened to have a pint of strawberries on hand. If I made these again, I would break the dough into around 4 smaller batches and individually wrap them. That way each section could stay in the freezer until you were ready to roll it, and you wouldn't have to deal with cutting a thick block of frozen dough into smaller portions.
I was not shy with the flour when rolling these cookies either. Prior to baking there was lots of extra flour stuck to these guys, and they still looked fine. I rolled the dough between sheets of parchment paper, and it definitely made lifting the cookies quite a bit easier. By the time I got to the last scrap of dough, the nonpareils had begun to bleed a bit. There were really pretty color streaks through some of the cookies as the nonpareils moved while I rolled the dough.


Even though I have a small chopper, when I tried smashing one strawberry it just ended up in large chunks. So I threw in four and pureed them. I think I might have added a tad more than one strawberry to the cream, but it was pretty close to her recipe. I know it seems like you should add more fruit, but the more you add the more likely it is that your frosting will separate and look less appealing. Even with the small amount of fruit, the flavor really comes through. Like I already said, it's wonderful.



I find the whole rolling-baking-sandwiching process to be really cathartic. Do you stress bake? I know I do. But I also bake when I happy, so I don't know if it's actually relevant to my emotional status.

*These are going to be posted at Sweets for a Saturday. There aren't many other vegan treats, but a lot of ideas for things to veganize!

A Whole Lotta Cookies in the Cookie Jar

Today I have a guest post over at Great Sage's blog. I discuss my favorite (and least favorite) recipes from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. If you don't live in the Maryland-DC area, you might not have heard of Great Sage. They are a terrific, all vegan restaurant located in Clarksville, MD. If you have the opportunity to stop by, I highly recommend their ceasar salad and their adult mac-n-cheese!

S'mores Thumbprint Cookies

My grand plans for the rest of the Sweet & Sara marshmallows and Smuckers marshmallow topping, were these s'mores thumbprint cookies. I had seen the idea on a non-vegan blog called How Sweet It Is, and wanted to veganize them so, so badly. I started with the chocolate thumbprint cookie recipe from Vegan With A Vengeance. I used a mixture of regular and dark cocoa powders. I also subbed vegetable oil and almond milk for the peanut oil and soy milk, and added extra flour to make the dough a little thicker since I didn't have time to chill it.
I rolled the dough in small balls, slightly smaller than a quarter. Half of the balls I coated in crushed graham crackers prior to baking. After 6 minutes in the oven, I either pushed in half a marshmallow or made a large thumbprint. I baked them for another five minutes. While still warm, I filled the thumbprints with marshmallow topping. I also dusted the tops of all uncoated cookies with graham cracker crumbs (and even a few that I did roll, because I am overzealous like that). The marshmallows do get quite puffy in the oven and expand. Let them cool on their own, because if you squish them down with your hand, you will get large craters in your cookie. They will deflate quite a bit.


Personally, my favorite cookies were the ones with half a marshmallow in them and rolled in graham cracker prior to baking. However, none of them were disappointing. I attempted to broil the cookies to make them appear more s'more like, however my oven was uncooperative. You could try that, or use a kitchen torch if you happen to own one. The slight brown color I did get on the edges of the marshmallows is so similar to the color of the graham crackers, that it's difficult to differentiate.
I wonder what recipe I will get obsessed with next? I have a long to bake list, but am leaving town tonight to visit my home in Tennessee for a week. Does everyone else have huge folders of potential baking projects? It's normal to dream about cookies too, right?


I also just heard about this site called Spencer's Market. It's basically a Vegan Cuts or Living Social type site that it is specific to vegan food! I mean, who doesn't want to know about new vegan snacks, right?!

Sugar Cookies

I am finally done with my 3rd semester of graduate school! I spent my first truly free weekend in months by making sugar cookies. I found this recipe about a year ago, and it has been my go to recipe for sugar cookies since. The only changes that I make are adding vanilla bean paste rather than extract, and I normally throw in a tablespoon or 2 extra cream cheese. The dough is incredibly thick, so if you aren't making it in a standing mixer be patient and prepare for the upper body workout.
Definitely don't skip the chilling step. I normally refrigerate the dough for at least an hour or two before I start the process. I always roll the dough out between parchment paper with extra flour under the dough and a bit sprinkled on top. The cookies will be really soft when you take them out of the oven, but do firm up quite a bit as they cool.


I have seen an overwhelming amount of Christmas cookies lately, so I thought it would be awesome to make a batch of Chanukah cookies. I also threw in a few snowflakes because I haven't used those cookie cutters yet this winter either. Piping royal icing is something that I both love and hate. I think of it as an endurance sport, because I spend at least 3 hours decorating just 2 dozen cookies. I hope one day to get to the skill level of Bridget who runs Bake at 350, but for now I am pretty pleased with where I am. The most important thing I have learned about piping sugar cookies is how important it is to have the proper consistency of icing for outlining and flooding designs. Outlining icing should be similar to the consistency of toothpaste, while flooding icing should be similar to shampoo. I don't really follow a recipe when I make royal icing, I normally just mix powdered sugar with a bit of corn syrup and water until it's the right consistency. I used vanilla extract in this frosting, which is why the shade is more of an off-white. If you want truly white frosting, you need to either use a clear vanilla extract or something like almond or lemon.


It was getting dark pretty quickly, so you might be able to tell that some of the icing isn't dry yet in these photos. These cookies take so long to dry. Be patient, and don't stack them until the next day! I also recommend baking the cookies the night before you plan to frost them. Do you have any other tips or tricks for elaborate piping?

Speculoos Caramel Cookie Bars

I got my holiday gift a little early this year. My partner and I are both pretty impatient when it comes to surprises, so we exchanged presents on Monday. I sponsored a chicken for a year in his name at Poplar Springs Animal Sanctuary, which I thought was pretty neat. However, I got outdone! He surprised me with a pistachio KitchenAid standing mixer! I have been wistfully staring at pictures of this mixer on their website for many months now. I couldn't believe that it was finally mine! After grinning incessantly and taking a few photos, I decided it was time to put it to use making him something extravagant.


I had seen this recipe on Seitan is My Motor earlier this month and knew it wouldn't be long before I cracked open my second jar of Speculoos spread to attempt it. I have made a dulce de leche before, but this time something went wrong. My caramel never firmed up even though I cooked it for quite a while. In attempts of saving it, I threw in some agar. This made it thicker so that it was no longer a liquid, but it gave it the texture of a custard. I knew that it was going to be too thin for successfully cutting the bars, but I used it anyways.
I really enjoyed the cookie crust from this recipe. It was firm and not too sweet, which balances the super sweet cookie butter layer. I melted two teaspoons of coconut oil into the dark chocolate I used for the top layer, and spread it with an offset spatula.


All in all, my bars were a mess because of my caramel error. But I will definitely attempt these again. They remind me of a Twix bar with a subtle hint of cinnamon. In fact, next time I might try the caramel from this vegan Twix bar recipe. I might also try using the 'dulce sin leche' recipe from VCTOTW, which uses brown rice syrup as a main ingredient.


Sometimes it's good to have a reminder that baking is a trial and error process. At least I have a beautiful mixer now! Did you ask for kitchen or baking supplies for the holidays? I think I have a never ending list of things I would love to have.

Chocolate Chip Candy Cane Cookies

My partner hates everything about Christmas except for two things, The Christmas Story and these cookies. Last year, he and his housemate made these for their families and neighbors, and I am sure that everyone was pretty excited. These cookies involve one of my favorite wintery combinations, candy canes and chocolate. There aren't many combinations of chocolate and mint that don't please me. While I think my favorite might still be the peppermint brownie, it's really a close call.
This is the second time we have made these cookies this month. The first time they got eaten so quickly I didn't have time to take a picture. Our standby recipe for chocolate chip cookies is the Ghiradelli recipe using Earth Balance and Ener-G powder. Since the grocery store nearby didn't have vegan chocolate chips, we crushed a bar of 52% dark semi-sweet chocolate. We also threw in 4 pulverized candy canes and a few drops of peppermint extract (be careful to add slowly, mint extract is normally very strong!). I think it's a pretty terrific ratio, but you could save some of the candy canes to place on top of the cookies after baking if you want them to look a little prettier.
Just so you are forewarned, the candy might melt during baking and make it a little tough to remove the cookies from the tray.


Do you make any other desserts with candy canes?

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

I knew I had to make something great for my work holiday party. I also knew that it had to be beautiful so that all of the omni's would grab them without thinking. The science crowd can be pretty tough to convince that vegan food can be delicious.
I decided on a batch of chocolate crinkle cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. While I highly recommend that you buy a copy of the cookbook too, I found the recipe online for those of you who haven't bought it yet. The blogpost I am linking to is misleading, because the recipe is definitely from VCIYCJ and not written by this lady (you can even see the open cookbook in the photos).


I used a bar of 54% dark chocolate and dark cocoa powder for this recipe. It really adds to the flavor and appearance of the cookies. Chilling the cookie dough will make the rolling process much easier, but you will still probably want to keep a towel nearby to wipe cookie dough and sugar off your hands. Definitely don't skip the granulated sugar rolling step. The thin layer of granulated sugar keeps the powdered sugar from getting really wet and looking gross and makes the outside of the cookie a lot firmer.


I make cupcakes because they are cute, but I make cookies because they are something I want to eat. This cookbook won't fail you. Some of my other favorite recipes are the Lazy Samoas and the Citrus Glitters. What's your favorite cookie?

Speculoos Spread Snickerdoodles

I remember the Speculoos craze in 2009. It seemed like every blog I read was either using it or searching for it. The cookies, the spread, whatever they could get a hold of.
I found a jar of Speculoos spread at Trader Joe’s for the first time recently and swooned. While I had eaten my fair share of Biscoff cookies on many Delta flights, I hadn’t ever seen the spread. It was pretty magical. I spread it on my toast and an apple and had the great realization that I must bake something with it.


(photo from fitnessista.com)
For those of you who are unaware of what Speculoos/Biscoff cookies are, they are a caramelized biscuit with a hint of spices. And most of the time the cookies and a spread made from the pulverized cookies are vegan!
Speculoos cookies are also a Belgian and Dutch tradition for celebrating St. Nicholas Day on December 5th or 6th depending on which country you are in. So I thought I would make two recipes using the spread as a modern twist on those traditions.
The first recipes I made was a cookie (if you can’t tell, I have been on a cookie craze lately). While the recipe I followed, looked much different than my results, I was highly pleased. My cookies were very similar to snickerdoodles, with a pleasantly crisp outside and thick chewy center. I ate them with a cup of hot tea and wouldn’t change a thing. I’m not sure if the differences in our results were due to a difference in the spreads or I somehow mucked up the recipe. I haven’t repeated it to see yet, but soon!


Along with the spread, Trader Joe’s also sells a Speculoos/Biscoff type cookie they refer to as Bistro Biscuits if you want to try the cookie. If you don’t live near a Trader Joe’s, you can also buy the cookies and spread from Biscoff in the US (and I think get bonus points if you are a Delta frequent flyer). If you would rather make the cookies or spread yourself there are great recipes here and here.
Have you ever eaten the cookies or the cookie butter? Are you as crazy about it as I am? One of my friends described it as ground up Cinnamon Teddy Grahams, which I find to be pretty accurate.

White Chocolate Pomegranate Cookies

Yesterday I saw a pomegranate sitting in a produce aisle and couldn't remember the last time I had eaten one. I gladly bought it, soaked it, and pulled out all the arils. While I was making the macadamia nut cookies I had the brilliant idea to set aside part of the nut-free dough and throw in a few arils. The results were wonderful. The pomegranate added the right amount of tartness and texture to the cookies.
I happily ate the remaining pomegranate while sitting around in my pajamas watching TV. Now my lips and fingers are a charming shade of pink!


Do you ever change a recipe mid-baking? It seems to be a habit of mine.

Salted Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Today I have a guest post on my friend Kaelah's blog. There you can find a recipe for salty chocolate chip cookies! She is also responsible for this blog's aesthetics. So if you're looking for a re-design, you should consider commissioning her!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

I made these last month for a 'wrap it up' themed potluck. I promised to make the best desert, and I think I made it happen. I made chocolate chip cookie dough wrapped in a cupcake! I borrowed the idea from a non-vegan blog, and made it work. Best of all though, is that with vegan cookie dough there isn't any fear or getting sick from raw cookie dough.
I made just under 3 dozen cupcakes. I used two batches of vanilla cupcake from the infamous Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, but replaced the granulated sugar for brown sugar. I intentionally underfilled the cups knowing that the cookie dough would take up quite a bit of room.
For the cookie dough, I used soy-free Earth Balance and Ener-G egg replacer in the recipe on the Ghiradelli bag. I only needed one batch of cookie dough, to fill all the cupcakes with small balls and make a dozen mini cookies as toppers. I used the frosting from Annie's Eats original recipe with 1 cup of earth balance and 1/2 cup of shortening.



Even though I froze the cookie dough balls for 2 hours prior to baking them in the cupcakes, they still seemed to cook a little. It's possible that a longer freeze might help, but you could also just fill the cookies after baking to not worry about it.
I highly recommend these! One of my even friends described them as life altering.