Vegan Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I would be lying if I said vegan baking wasn't a challenge. As both a professional and home baker, butter and cream have become my nearest and dearest of friends. Scarcely a day has passed in the last few years where we haven't created beautiful things together (or, at the very least, greeted one another when I opened the refrigerator door). I like to imagine I've developed a feel for baking—for the elasticity of bread dough beneath my fingertips or the proper weight of a cookie balanced on an outstretched hand. I've grown so much as a baker in the last couple years, from my hesitant beginnings to here and now.

Vegan baking, however, makes me feel like I've started back at square one.

I made a promise to you when I took on this challenge—to use familiar, everyday ingredients and keep the recipes approachable. Little did I know it was much easier said than done. There are so many recipes out there that use "faux" versions of butter, eggs, and cream in place of their real counterparts (and the recipes just don't measure up). While I know butter isn't good for me, I can't imagine partially hydrogenated soybean oil is going to be any better. I can't even buy vegan egg replacement in my neck of the woods.

The vegan recipes I want to share with you aren't intended to be lesser versions of originals, but rather unique and delicious on their own accord.

With these lofty goals, I approached the kitchen last weekend feeling confident. After scraping half a dozen inedible delights into the garbage can, it was obvious I had come up short. Somewhere between the banana bread and the brownies, I lost hope in any of my baking abilities, growing frustrated by the deceiving scents wafting throughout the apartment. I gave up. Good riddance, I yelled at the batter splatted spatula and dirty mixing bowls as I threw them in the sink.

I made granola instead.

Late Sunday evening, when the sun hung low in the sky, I crossed my fingers and gave vegan baking one last chance. And it worked.

Vegan Chocolate Chunk Cookies are soft baked and chewy. The batter may be a little unusual to put together, but the final product, scattered with chocolate chunks, is a treat. While these may not replace your go-to recipe, they are a lovely dairy-free, egg-free cookie for feeding friends and family who may have allergies. I brought them to work and nobody could guess they were made without butter. I call that a success.

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Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies

For the month of June, I've decided to go vegan. It's more of a personal challenge to myself than a moral or ethical decision. Growing up in meat and potatoes country, I've never struck issue with eating meat. Both sets of my grandparents were farmers and ranchers, raising crops and cattle and working off the land. The farm was my second home when I was younger. Rooting around the big red barn and watching cattle through barbed wire fences was a regular pastime. I was raised on meat from my uncle's farm. He made a homemade sausage so good that my family would freeze it so we could enjoy it every month of the year.

You could say, in a way, that farm life is in my blood—that meat is in my blood.

Even so, I've always been curious about veganism. It's intimidating to me, honestly. I rely so heavily on dairy and egg products in my everyday life, typically grabbing a yogurt and an egg sandwich for a meal. Part of the reason I wanted to challenge myself with a month of veganism was to force myself to explore new foods, eat more fruits and vegetables, and get cooking in the kitchen. I wonder how my body will feel after a month without consuming any animal products. I fear I will have a hard time eating enough protein.

A year and a half ago, I was a vegetarian for a few months. It wasn't necessarily a conscious decision so much as it was a necessary one. Living in Montreal, Quebec, was expensive and I simply couldn't afford the high price of meat as a poor college student. However, becoming a vegetarian in a big city was almost effortless. Becoming a vegan in North Dakota, where grocery stores only hold three packages (not brands or types) of tofu will be an entirely different story. Vegans are few and far between in meat and potatoes country. I'll certainly be out of my element, but that is just another difficult part of the challenge.

Over the last week I've slowly been emptying my cupboards of "forbidden foods." I've finished the milk, eaten the yogurt, consumed the cans of soups, and said my goodbyes to my dear friend, butter. Despite my best efforts to clean out the cupboards, I still had a shelf of soon-to-be banned baking supplies. These cookies were born out of the last of the forbidden foods, featuring toffee pieces and chocolate chips.

As I experiment with this new lifestyle over the next month, I have a promise I want to make to you. I am going to do my best to continue to keep my foods approachable, delicious, and to use familiar, everyday ingredients you already have in your kitchen. My baking and recipes may be vegan, but they don't need to shout it from the rooftops. I'll keep you updated on this journey of mine—I can only wonder how it will play out.

These toffee chocolate chip cookies are an "everything but the kitchen sink" cookie, featuring a little bit of this and that. Oatmeal, chocolate chips, toffee pieces, and chopped almonds come together to create a crunchy, hearty cookie that just begs to be dunked in a glass of milk. These cookies are dangerous when lying around the house. You might find yourself sneaking three or four in a day's time.

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Peanut Butter Cornmeal Cookies

Lethargic, listless, lackadaisical. I've been utterly lazy the last week and half. At first, it was because I was jet-lagged, blaming time differences and long flights on my reason for not getting up from the couch. However, after the fatigue wore off, so did my excuses. I began setting my alarm to get up for the gym—an honest attempt to drag myself back into a normal schedule. Waking up to the loud beeping with cloudy skies overhead, I found myself hitting the snooze button and turning over for another hour's rest.

Not today, I'd tell myself. Maybe tomorrow...

One day turned into two. Then three, then four. After rolling out of bed, I'd eat breakfast before situating myself in front of the television to watch hours of sitcoms and Lifetime movies. I made up excuses to convince myself I didn't need to leave the house. Overdue library books sat by the front door, accumulating small, but bothersome ten cent charges each day that passed. I wasn't sad or depressed, sick or under the weather. I was simply and inexcusably lazy.

I don't really need to go to the gym, I'd tell myself while eating through a bag of potato chips. I'll bake something tomorrow, I'd assure myself, scrolling through more recipes on Pinterest. Laziness was a luxury, wasn't it?

But, as the days turned into a week, I wasn't so sure of that anymore.

Abraham Miller once said that he who knows how to loaf is wiser than three sages. I have the feeling, however, he wasn't talking about me. With all the reality television I was watching, I couldn't hope to be as wise as one sage, much less three. Laziness was no longer a luxury. It was becoming a chore (and no one likes chores).

Exactly 10 days after my lazy streak started, it abruptly ended. I pulled myself together. I went to the gym. I cuddled back up to my Kitchenaid mixer and made sweet, sweet desserts. I returned the library books back to their rightful home. Though laziness does have a time and place (and I will look back upon mine fondly), sometimes enough is enough.

The real world comes calling and we all must get up off the couch.

These Peanut Butter Cornmeal Cookies are the product of curious thinking and experimentation. Gluten and dairy free, the cookies are made with crunchy peanut butter and rolled in sugar for sweetness. The cornmeal adds a little extra texture to these cookies, without a distinguishable taste. Though the cornmeal can give the cookies a drier texture, it isn't anything a glass of milk can't cure.

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