These cookies are vegan. If you don’t follow a vegan lifestyle, I realize that’s probably not the best opening line if I’m trying to pique your interest and keep you reading this post, but stay with me here. I promise you it will be worth it.
My experiences with vegan baking have been lacklustre. I will take the proffered sweet, politely take a bite, and say “it’s good”. And what I really mean is, it’s good, for vegan. You need that qualifier.
With these cookies, that qualifier is not necessary. These cookies are good. Actually, they’re great. They’ve become one of my favourite cookies. And that’s high praise coming from someone who has over 75 cookie recipes on her blog.
The secret ingredient is coconut butter, not to be confused with coconut oil. Coconut oil is just the oil extracted from coconut, whereas coconut butter is ground-up coconut. Coconut butter is available at many health food stores, and online, or you can make it yourself. The talented Dana, over at at minimalist baker has a foolproof recipe.
Those clever folks over at Cooks Illustrated figured out that if you melt and cook the coconut butter, it becomes brown and nutty and delicious. Right out of the jar, it’s almost pure white.
Give it some heat and about 7 minutes and this is what happens. And big bonus, your house will smell amazing!
No need to pull out the mixer for these cookies. Just stir everything together in a big bowl. You need all purpose flour, of course. Some brown sugar adds to the chewiness. Baking soda and baking powder give lift. No eggs or butter are needed. The coconut butter holds these cookies together. Oh, and don’t forget a pinch of salt!
Pro-tip: Use an ice cream scoop to get even sized cookies that will bake evenly. Gently flatten the cookies and sprinkle lightly with flaky sea salt. Not too much, as you’ll add more after dipping in chocolate.
The original recipe at Cook’s Illustrated did not include dipping them in chocolate, but coconut and chocolate just belong together! I tempered my chocolate for dipping, and if you have an instant read thermometer and a bit of patience, you should temper your chocolate as well.
Tempering the chocolate before dipping will give the cookies a smooth, glossy evenly coloured coating. Biting into into the chocolate coating, will produce that crisp satisfying snap . Without the tempering process, the cocoa butter separates out and you get a streaky, dull grey coating. I give detailed instructions on how to temper, in the recipe.
Thanks for the recipe. I was really excited to try browned coconut butter in a recipe but, unfortunately, these turned out flavorless! The dough was fine, but had only a little coconut flavor. After baking, the coconut flavor was totally gone! I’m surprised Cooks Illustrated published this recipe. Usually their recipes are perfect. I followed the directions and used the correct ingredients. Dipping them in chocolate was the only saving grace for these cookies, so there’s that. Nice save!
So sorry to hear you didn’t like them Becky. Everyone we served them too loved them and found them loaded with coconut flavour. I wonder if it was the brand of coconut butter you used?
This is the brand I used:
https://www.amazon.com/Artisana-Pure-Organic-Coconut-Butter/dp/B012Q04O6M/ref=as_li_ss_tl?th=1&linkCode=ll1&tag=naturalfoodrepublic.com-20&linkId=f505d84ee8156c6bb72c1d0dd5af6482
I made these and added some cocoa powder (because I didn’t have melting chocolate) and some almond flavoring. Yum!!!
So happy you liked them Aileen. What a great idea to add cocoa powder! How much did you add? Did you substitute some of the flour for cocoa powder, or just add the cocoa powder?