The first several times I made the chocolate chip cookies from Isa’s Vegan With a Vengeance I was thoroughly perplexed. Despite the fact that I followed the recipe precisely–er, at least after that first disaster of guesswork & overconfidence–the dough was maddeningly crumbly! So crumbly, in fact, that I had to Hulk Smash it between my palms to get it to hold any kind of shape–and even then it was tentative at best.
My solution was to add some soymilk as a binder. But it was no solution! It sort of helped with the shaping issue…but the cookies came out so flat & chewy that they were only suitable for cookie sandwiches. (Mmmm… cookie smammiches). I got online to see what other VWAV readers had tried–and sure enough, many of them complained about the mysteriously crumbly dough. Even a friend in my vegan co-op dinner rotation, Suzanne, mentioned that she’d attempted the repair the weird recipe by adding soymilk.
Most recently I skipped the soymilk and, fingers crossed!, gingerly placed the misshapen lumps onto the cookie sheet. Guess what? They came out perfectly:
Here’s the deal. I, apparently among many, am an amateur cookie (& food science) enthusiast–and so I totally missed the fact that the VERY HIGH PROPORTION of fat (in the form of a quarter of a container of softened Earth Balance) would actually melt & meld the cookies together in the baking process, giving them a lovely shape & texture after ten minutes. Instead of exercising patience, I felt I had to “fix” the crumbly dough by adding soymilk. Don’t make the same mistake! Just Hulk SMASH your cookies & wait for the magic!
Thanks & credit go to “el-grimlock” at deviantart.com for the awesome base Hulk image.
do do do do want hulk smash in my belly.
I actually LIKE my version of the recipe, with soymilk added and slightly less margarine. (I also got rid of the molasses and changed the white sugar to brown, to simplify the recipe and because I’m used to my mom’s low fat brown sugar chocolate chip cookies.) I vaguely remember doing it for the first time exactly as the recipe said, and I didn’t like the texture. But then again, maybe I made a mistake, so I could try doing it “properly” one more time…
I’d love to get your recipe, Suzanne! I worry about the amount of fat in these cookies and if you have successfully reduced it without sparing the flavor, I want to try! Thanks so much. :)