Quite A Variety October 13, 2007

I celebrated my two-year veganversary on September 2nd and made a cookie cake fitting for the occassion!

Peanut Butter and Jelly Thumbprints
The first in a series of thumbprint cookies.

Oatmeal Peanut Butter No-Bakes

Thin and Chewy Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies
There are going to be multiple chocolate chip cookies to suit everyone’s palete!

Chewy Pumpkin Spice Cookies
It seems to be a near impossible feat to create a pumpkin spicy cookie that is chewy. Fluffy? Cakey? Soft? Easy.
These were pretty good, but unfortunately didn’t turn out chewy as I’d hoped. Back to the drawing board!

Chocolate Dipped Powdered Creams
Melt in your mouth!

Vanilla Sandwich Cookies
These are oreos’ alter-ego, commonly known as “Uh-oh” Oreos. Except these come with variations on the cream inside. Pictured here is chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. The recipe still needs a bit of work as the cookie parts came out chewy-ish rather than crisp.

Caramel Cashew Nut Rolls
I got this idea from Garrick on the PPK (he’s writing this book with me, actually!). I need to fix the caramel recipe, but these are excellent.

Double Chocolate Cookies
I’ve blogged about these before. Made them this morning!

And I posted the recipe for these on the Post Punk Kitchen forums, so I’ll share here too!

Giant Bakery Style Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 8-10 giant cookies (or more small ones)

These cookies will soon rock your world. They are huge, chocolate-y, chewy, soft, and decadent, all contained in a four-inch diameter. My goal here was to recreate those huge asparagus bakery cookies with crispy edges and a delicious chewy center and these cookies have surpassed those other cookies. So make these ones! They’re an amazing treat that will leave you addicted.

1/2 cup chocolate chips (for melting)
1/2 cup soy milk
2/3 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch

2 cups flour
2/3 cup cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Melt the chocolate chips with 1/3 cup of the soy milk in either a microwave or in a glass dish placed in a saucepan of boiling water (makeshift double-boiler).

Pour the melted chocolate and soy milk into a large bowl, then add the rest of the soy milk, oil, vanilla, sugar, and cornstarch.

Add in the flour (unsifted), cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Stir until thoroughly mixed, then add the chocolate chips.

Here comes the super fun part! Using your hands (or if you must, a spoon. Live a little! Get your hands covered in the most chocolate-y cookie dough ever!), grab handfuls of cookie dough and flatten them out to a little thicker than a 1/2″ on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake for about 15 minutes (shorter if you made smaller cookies) or until the edges are very firm, and the centers look chewy and feel soft to the touch. Let rest on the cookie sheet for a minute or so, then very carefully transfer to the cooling rack without destroying any cookies. They are completely amazing warm and gooey and still taste divine after cooling off.