Smells Like Teen Spirit

And tastes like it too!

But without the fear of eating raw eggs...

Wait... Am I getting a bit ahead of myself?

Did you figure out I was talking about all the sleepovers I used to have with my girlfriends? And how I loved baking cookies and eating half the raw dough with them before we baked?

You did? Great!

Well, did you figure out I was also talking about how the recipe I am going to share with you today is a vegan cookie recipe? So there are no eggs in the recipe, meaning no raw eggs in the cookie batter?

Let me say that again, just incase you didn't catch it the first time: there are no eggs in the batter!

I guess you can tell I am not a vegan or this little tidbit of information would not have affected me. But since I always have eggs in my cookie recipes, this is extremely exciting.

And what was more exciting was that these cookies were delicious.

I don't know about you, but I have always tended to think about vegan cooking in a negative light. I didn't think there would be a lot of taste because the food had kind of bland ingredients. At least that's how I thought about vegan cooking, without have tasted it.

I was definitely proved wrong. And I hope you will be proved wrong too.

So let Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero's Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar as soon as possible.

All I did to make their recipe my own was shape the cookies differently. Instead of wrapping the peanut butter part of the cookie with the chocolate part of the cookie, I used the peanut butter part as the centre of a flower.

Let me know which style of cookie you prefer:

Moskowitz and Romero's Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows

or.... 

MY Peanut Butter Chocolate Flowers

(Hint, choose my style of cookie if you want a taste.)

So here's the recipe (and remember feel free to enjoy some of the batter!):

Peanut Butter Chocolate Flowers

Chocolate Dough

1/2 cup oil
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
3 tablespoons soy milk (vanilla if possible)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Peanut Butter Dough

3/4 cup natural peanut butter (Adam's if possible)
2/3 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons soy milk (vanilla if possible)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

1. Make the chocolate dough. Combine oil, sugar, maple syrup, soy milk, and vanilla and mix until smooth. Stir in flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt to form a moist dough.

2. Make the peanut butter dough. In a separate bowl, mix together peanut butter, powdered sugar, soy milk, and vanilla to form a moist dough. If you are using a different brand of natural peanut butter than Adam's, you may need an additional tablespoon of soy milk to thin out the batter.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and form the cookies. Use your hands to form 24 balls of the chocolate dough. Set a silicon mat on a cookie sheet and place 12 of the the chocolate balls on the cookie sheet. Then use your hands to form 24 smaller balls of the peanut butter dough. Flatten the chocolate balls down a bit and press the peanut butter balls on top to form flowers.

4. Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes and remove from the oven. Leave the cookies on the cookie sheet for an additional 5 minutes before letting them cool on wire racks.

5. Lastly, bake the remaining 12 cookies...Unless you have already eaten the rest of the dough!