Cookies on the Brain

For some households, cookie season ends right around the New Year...about the same time the Christmas decorations are packed away, and everyone is vowing to a year of healthy decisions.

Fortunately, the Hungry Spoon cookie season lasts 365 days a year. We never tire of new cookie recipes. Plus, it's critical to practice your cookie-making skills throughout the year so you're fully prepared for the next holiday season.

I guess this makes cookie-baking a pretty self-less act then. (I've become fairly good at rationalizing my baking compulsions, haven't I?)

At any rate, this week Adam was hungry for Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, and I was eager to deliver. I created a new recipe based on one in my favorite cookie cookbook: Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.

My use of non-vegan vanilla yogurt and non-vegan chocolate chips stripped them of their virgin vegan status, but I'm not complaining. The yogurt contributed to a ridiculously moist crumb, and the double-shot of chocolate (from both cocoa powder and melted chocolate chips) made these cookies blue ribbon winners in our house.

Cheers to a cookie-baking season that lasts 365 days a year!

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

(adapted from a recipe in Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar)

These bite-size cookies are the perfect treat to pair with a cup of coffee, sneak into your favorite person's lunch bag, or just to munch on while you're cooking dinner :)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup oil
• 3 TBSP non-fat vanilla yogurt
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup milk (I used skim)
• 1 TBSP ground flaxseed
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips, melted (I simply melted mine on a double boiler)
• 1 - 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 TBSP cocoa powder
• 3/4 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt

For the coating:

• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 to 1 cup powdered sugar, sifted

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 325 degrees and coat baking sheets with cooking spray.

2) In a large bowl, mix the sugar, oil, yogurt, vanilla, milk, flaxseeds, and melted chocolate until smooth. Stir in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. You will have a thick, moist dough. Refrigerate for about 45 minutes.

3) Meanwhile, place the sifted powdered sugar on a large plate, and pour the granulated sugar in a small bowl. To prepare the cookies, take a large, rounded tablespoon of dough, roll it in a ball, roll it in the granulated sugar, and then roll it in the powdered sugar. Place on the baking sheet and repeat until the dough is gone.

4) Bake cookies for about 11 - 12 minutes, or until they're puffed and cracked. Allow to cool and gobble them up--I swear they taste like brownie cookies :)