BAKING VEGAN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES WITH HOMESCHOOLERS

As a mother of five homeschooled children, I incorporated baking and cooking as part of their curriculum. Since they're all grown ups now, I decided to share baking classes to other homeschooled kids.

Like most kids, Sovi and Tice LOVE cookies! They’re one of their favorite things to bake, eat and planning to start their new business using my recipe. There’s nothing better than seeing the look on kid's face when you give them a fresh batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies. Warm, sweet, and it's VEGAN!

The best part of this recipe is that these cookies taste so much like traditional chocolate chip cookies, no one even knows they’re vegan.

Veganism is a type of vegetarian diet that excludes meat, eggs, dairy products and all other animal-derived ingredients. Many vegans also do not eat foods that are processed using animal products, such as refined white sugar and some wines.

Let's talk about coconut sugar as an alternative ingredient for white sugar in cookies!

Coconut sugar has a lower glycemic index (35) than white sugar (60 to 65), meaning it doesn't spike your blood glucose and insulin like table sugar does.

How About Using Coconut Oil instead of Butter?

Coconut oil can be substituted 1:1 for other fats.

In baking Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies, coconut oil makes a wonderful substitute for butter and other oils, like olive oil, canola oil, and vegetable oil. In any type of fat used in a recipe, you can swap in an equal amount of coconut oil.

THE RECIPE

Classic Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cook Time: 13 minutes

Total Time: 23 minutes

Yield: 36 cookies (3 dozen)

Ingredients

3/4 cup refined coconut oil

3/4 cup coconut sugar

3/4 cup packed organic brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/4 cups vegan chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Keep in mind that this recipe makes 3 dozen so you will need to bake multiple batches.

2. In a large bowl, add the coconut oil, coconut sugar, brown sugar and vanilla, and mix well. Stir in the all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt until a dough form. Lastly, mix in chocolate chips until well incorporated.

Optional:

Set the dough into the refrigerator to chill.

Using a tablespoon sized scooper, drop mounds of dough onto the baking sheet 2 inches apart (we fit 12 on each sheet and baked these in 3 batches). No need to press them down.

3. Place into the oven and bake for 13-14 minutes, or until the edges brown. The cookies will seem soft but don’t worry, they will firm up while they cool. Allow the cookies to rest on the baking sheet for 1 minute after removing them from the oven and then carefully transfer them onto a cooling rack using a spatula. Cool completely.

If you would like to save this dough for later, you can freeze it. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and use a cookie scooper to evenly scoop mounds of the dough. You can line them up close together since you are not baking them. Once you have scooped out all of the dough, place the baking sheet into the freezer for 30-60 minutes (the longer the better). Remove the dough mounds from the trays and transfer them to a freezer safe bag. Be sure to keep note of when you freeze them + what time and temperature you need to bake them at! Since the dough is frozen, it might require 1 to 2 minutes or even longer for baking.

4.Store in an airtight container for 1 week.

Everybody's happy and brought joy in my heart seeing these young kids excited in learning how to bake.