White Chocolate Biscoff Cookies

When I first posted these on my instagram, everyone loved them! I promised that I would write up the recipe –  so here it is!

These cookies are white chocolate chip – but with a hidden surprise…

They’re stuffed with a biscoff spread filling!

The cookies themselves are pretty big, so make sure when you bake them you leave plenty of space on the tray for them – else you end up with several cookies stuck together.

• Servings: 12 cookies
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Ingredients

For the cookies
• 100g vegan white chocolate chips (or chop up a white chocolate bar into chunks)
• 140g vegan butter
• 150g brown sugar
• 100g white sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp water
• 0.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 275g plain flour

For the filling

• 125g biscuit spread
• 40g icing sugar (powdered sugar)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 175C/350F
1. Begin by combining the butter, sugars, and vanilla in a bowl and mixing unitil smooth and creamy.
2. Add the oil, baking powder, and water, and stir until combined.
3. Mix in the bicarbonate of soda.
4. Stir through the flour until a firm dough forms. Mix in the chocolate chips.
5. In a separate bowl, mix together the biscuit spread and icing sugar until the mixture is able to be formed into balls with your hand.
6. Form the cookie dough into twelve large cookie sized balls (or more/less if you would rather) and set them aside.
7. Take one of the cookie dough balls, break it in half, and flatten each half slightly.
8. Add a teaspoon sized amount of the biscoff mixture in the middle of one of the halves, and cover with the other half – making sure to seal well. Don’t worry about flattening the dough, it’ll do that in the oven.
9. Repeat until all the cookie dough is used up.
10. Place on a lined baking tray, and bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes until golden.
11. Enjoy!

Cherry and Almond Biscuits

What’s this? A blog post? Outside of VeganMoFo?! Yep, that’s right. I’m as shocked as you. I made these biscuits and thought, hey, why not blog them! They came about quite by accident – I made a Bakewell tart and had leftover glace cherries and ground almonds, and thought I’d use those Bakewell flavours and make biscuits!

They’re pretty simple to make, with ground almonds and almond extract in the dough giving it that Bakewell flavour, and chopped up glace cherries folded through. Glace cherries are a little sticky to chop, but they are worth it!

The dough can be made in advance – it needs to chill for at least an hour, but will be happy left overnight if you like! This means you can just bake them at your leisure and have freshly baked biscuits ready for you. These are perfect with a hot cup of tea.

Cherry & Almond Biscuits

• Servings: 20 biscuits
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Ingredients

• 125g vegan butter
• 150g white sugar
• 50g brown sugar
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 50g ground almonds
• 1 tbsp non-dairy milk
• 250g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 100g glace cherries, roughly chopped

Directions

1. Begin by creaming the butter and sugars in a bowl until light and fluffy.
2. Add in the almond extract, ground almonds, and milk, and mix well.
3. Stir through the flour and baking powder to form a dough.
4. Gently fold in the chopped cherries, making sure to distribute them evenly through the dough.
5. Place in the fridge for at least an hour to chill.
6. Preheat the oven to 180C/355F
7. Roll the dough into small balls and place on a baking sheet, giving room for expansion.
8. Place in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, until the cookies are golden at the edges.
9. Leave to cool on the baking tray, then eat!

 

Low FODMAP chocolate biscuits – VeganMoFo Day 15

Have you ever heard of the low-FODMAP diet? It’s an elimination diet mostly aimed at IBS sufferers, but can also be used for other chronic conditions. FODMAPs (Fermentable Oligo-saccharides Di-saccharides Mono-saccharides and Polyols) are carbohydrates that have been found to contribute to irritation in the gut in some people – basically, they’re things that people with IBS are often intolerant to. The low-FODMAP diet gets you to eliminate all FODMAPs for a certain period of time, and then slowly reintroduce them, one at a time, so you can figure out what your body can handle. It is a really boring elimination diet – I’ve been on it myself and it wasn’t fun! Here is a list of high, and low FODMAP foods. For today’s VeganMoFo, I made chocolate biscuits that are acceptable on a low FODMAP diet!

These biscuits are made with oats, rather than wheat flour, as wheat is a high fodmap food. If you use certified gluten free oats and baking powder, these biscuits are also gluten free. I used vitalite vegan butter for these, which I believe is low Fodmap, but around the world vegan butters may vary!

Low FODMAP Chocolate Biscuits

• Servings: 12
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Ingredients

• 250g oats
• 100g vegan butter (i used vitalite), melted
• 60g golden syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 100g white sugar
• 30g cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Directions

1. Begin by pulsing the oats in a food processor until they are finely milled and flour-like.
2. Meanwhile, mix the melted butter, golden syrup, vanilla extract, and sugar together in a large bowl until well combined.
3. Stir through the oat flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and bicarbonate of soda.
4. Place in the fridge for half an hour at least (you can make the dough a day in advance if you prefer).
Preheat the oven to 180C/355F
5. Take the dough out of the fridge and form into walnut size balls. Place on a lined baking tray and flatten slightly.
6. Bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, until they’re a little browner.
7. Leave to cool on the baking tray.

 

Chocolate chip cookies (vegan & gluten free) – VeganMoFo Day 10

I’ve posted a lot of chocolate chip cookie recipes already. Ok, maybe just one or two, but still. How many cookie recipes does a girl need? The answer is most likely, an infinite amount.

These cookies are slightly different though, as for VeganMoFo 18 day 10 we’re going gluten free! As always with making allergen free food you need to check with the person you’re making it for about what they can/can’t eat, and what level of cross contamination is ok for them – I’d classify these cookies as having “no gluten ingredients” because my kitchen is full of wheat products so I can’t guarantee them to be 100% gluten free, but if you made them somewhere without that, they would be!

I wanted to show how easy it is to make tasty gluten free food. I have eaten gluten free in the past when doing elimination diets for my stomach issues and I found that often, gluten free ready made flour works really well in recipes you already have! For this, I used Lidl’s own gluten free self raising blend, which is one of the cheapest, but any pre-made self raising flour would work.

The recipe is mostly based off my regular cookie recipe and it works pretty much the same, although I find the gluten free cookies have to bake a few minutes longer than my usual ones. They are so good that my husband even specifically requests them!

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

• Servings: 14
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Ingredients

– 130g vegan butter
– 80g brown sugar
– 80g white sugar
– 1 tsp vanilla extract
– 1 tbsp golden syrup
– 250g gluten free self raising flour
– 100g dark chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 175C/350F
1. Begin by creaming the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy.
2. Next, add the vanilla and golden syrup and mix thoroughly.
3. Stir through the flour to form a stiff dough.
4. Finally, mix in the chocolate chips.
5. Place walnut size balls of cookie dough on a lined baking sheet, leaving space for them to rise.
6. Place in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, until golden brown.
7. Leave to cool on tray.

5 Ingredient Cinnamon Biscuits – VeganMoFo Day 19

What can you make with five ingredients or less? Something simple like pasta? Or even just toast, perhaps? I decided, for today’s VeganMoFo prompt, to make it a little trickier and do some baking. I’ve been wanting to make some cinnamon biscuits for a while – I’m in a bit of a cinnamon kick at the moment – and this seemed like the perfect excuse.

These biscuits are crispy and crunchy, spiced with plenty of cinnamon and packed with oats – which I think go really well with the cinnamon flavour. They’re rolled in sugar before baking which helps get that crunch through them.

Cinnamon Oat Biscuits

• Servings: 16 cookies
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Ingredients

• 200g vegan butter
• 175g sugar
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 200g flour
• 75g oats

to roll in

• extra sugar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 175C/350F
1. Begin by creaming the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy.
2. Add the cinnamon and flour, and stir to combine thoroughly.
3. Next, stir through the oats.
4. Pour a small amount of the extra sugar onto a plate.
5. Break off walnut size balls of dough, and roll into balls in your hands. Roll each ball in the sugar, and then place on a baking sheet, flattening slightly with your palm.
6. Repeat until all the dough is used.
7. Place in the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, until the biscuits turn golden brown at the edges.
8. Leave to cool on the tray.

Jammy Devils

This month’s MiniMoFo theme is “Literary Inspiration”. If you know my reading habits, you’ll know I am a huge Discworld fan. I’ve even used the series in a previous VeganMoFo post! If you’ve not read Discworld – what are you waiting for? Terry Pratchett’s writing is astounding in its ability to be both fun and serious at the same time, to involve so much detail and yet be enjoyable to read, and to ultimately make you feel at home in his world.

Ankh-Morpork, the central city in the Discworld books, may remind you slightly of London, or perhaps some other city in which you grew up, just with magic and trolls. This recipe hails from there, adapted from Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook (yes, there is a Discworld cookbook) where it is described as “hot, sweet, and cheap. Just the thing for a snack in the middle of a night shift”. Now, I don’t know about night shifts – but I do know these are great for that warm, cosy feeling you get as the nights are drawing in and winter is looming in the background. There’s something about jammy desserts that gives off a relaxing vibe.

Now, I used a few different sorts of jam for these cookies, because I always have jam around and I thought it’d be fun to try several flavours, but you could just use one flavour if you like. I love how these look like kind of jewels on the plate!

One thing to be aware of when making these biscuits is – don’t put too much jam on them! You want enough that you can taste it, but if you put a giant dollop on, then it’ll pour over the edge of the biscuit and burn in the oven – and burnt jam is not very nice. Just make a little dip in the middle of the biscuit, and fill that with jam, and then you’ll have lovely not-burnt biscuits!

• Servings: 20 biscuits
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Ingredients

• 150g vegan butter
• 120g icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch in the US)
• 250g plain flour
• 2-3 tbsp vegan milk
• approx 4-5 tbsp jam

Directions

Preheat the oven to 180C/355F/Gas Mark 4
1. Begin by creaming the butter and sugar together until smooth and well mixed.
2. Stir in the vanilla extract.
3. Sift in the flour and cornflour and mix to form a soft dough, adding the milk a tablespoon at a time if necessary.
4. Place tablespoon sized balls of dough on a lined baking tray, evenly spaced.
5. Using your finger, or the back of a small spoon, make an indentation in the middle of each biscuit.
6. Add a small amount of jam to each divot – not so much that it overflows, just enough to fill the dip.
7. Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, until the edges are turning golden brown.
8. Allow to cool on the baking tray.

 

 

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Is there much better than a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie? Not really. Cookies are perfect to just eat as they are, or to bake up and take to an event. That’s where these cookies come in – and this month’s MiniMoFo too! These cookies are great to pack up and eat outdoors, I took them to a family do and everyone enjoyed them.

I’ve spent years perfecting my chocolate chip cookie recipe. I’ve cycled through many variations – ones that are soft and cakey, ones that are crispy, ones that are all brown sugar, ones that are all white….and so on. All of which are good, but they’re not this recipe. My husband even declared this to be his favourite, which is quite a compliment!

The idea for these cookies actually came from Reddit, of all places, where I saw a recipe that used a mixture of baking powder, water, and oil as an egg replacer. They mixed it all together and then poured it into the dough, but I found it worked just as well – if not better – put straight into the mixture.

These cookies are perfectly crispy on the outside, and soft and chewy on the middle. When you first take them out of the oven, they look a little puffed up and underbaked – but don’t worry! Leave them on the tray for five minutes and they turn into the delicious cookies you can see in the pictures.

• Servings: makes 30 cookies
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Ingredients

• 175g vegan butter
• 200g brown sugar
• 150g white sugar
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp oil
• 2 tbsp water
• 0.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 350g flour
• 200g chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 170C/340F
1. Begin by creaming the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy.
2. Add in the baking powder, oil, and water, and stir until well combined.
3. Mix in the vanilla and bicarbonate of soda.
4. Stir through the flour until you get a stiff dough.
5. Fold through the chocolate chips until well distributed through the cookie dough.
6. Place walnut size balls of dough on baking trays, leaving space for them to expand.
7. Put in the preheated oven for 13-15 minutes, until golden brown. Remove and leave to cool on the trays for at least 5 minutes.
8. Store in an airtight container for up to a week.

Brookies! – VeganMoFo Day 30

It’s the last day of VeganMoFo 2016! How sad is that? 😦 I really hope everyone has enjoyed it, and has found some great new vegan friends and recipes this month.

How apt that the final prompt for VeganMoFo this year is about giving. I love giving food as gifts and in fact did a huge order of food gifts for my family this past weekend. I made lots of my Millionaire’s Shortbread and lots of this recipe too.

Introducing brookies! They are a cross between brownies and cookies. I used my brownie recipe as inspiration – these cookies have melted chocolate in the batter which makes them lovely and fudgy – and adapted it into cookie form. And these might be the best cookie recipe I have ever come up with!

These cookies only take 10 minutes to bake – don’t leave them in any longer or they’ll overbake – and are so deliciously gooey and chocolatey that they are a perfect food gift for any chocolate lover. They use aquafaba, which is liquid from a can of chickpeas – read about it in my carob cookies page – which works in place of eggs and keeps them holding together.

Brookies

• Servings: Makes 22 Cookies
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Ingredients

• 100g vegan plain chocolate, broken into squares
• 40g cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp instant coffee powder (optional)
• 75g vegan butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tbsp milk of choice
• 3 tbsp aquafaba
• 225g white sugar
• 200g plain flour
• 75g chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat your oven to 180C/355F
1. In a heatproof bowl, combine the chocolate, cocoa, coffee, and butter. In a microwave, or over a double boiler, melt completely.
2. Into the melted mixture, add the bicarbonate of soda, vanilla, and aquafaba, and mix well.
3. Stir through the sugar until well combined.
4. Add the flour to the mix and fold through until no pockets of flour remain. Add the milk if necessary to make a smooth but stiff dough.
5. Finally, fold in the chocolate chips.
6. Place tablespoon size balls on a baking tray – no need to flatten – leaving a space between as they will spread slightly.
7. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. They will look slightly underbaked but do not leave any longer!
8. Leave to cool before eating.

Mince Pie Cookies – VeganMoFo Day 28

It’s the final week of VeganMoFo 2016! Can you believe that? In just a few days it’ll be December, nearly Christmas. Are you feeling festive yet? Or are you a bit of a Scrooge and wish we’d all shut up about Christmas? Well, I’m firmly in the former camp. Christmas is great! If I have to put up with the cold rainy months I am going to enjoy Christmas as much as I can.

Mince pies are something traditionally Christmassy here in the UK. If you’re not familiar with them, they are a dessert – small individual pies filled with “mincemeat” which has no meat but is actually a stewed spiced fruit mix. You can buy it in jars here in most supermarkets (these days it’s almost always vegan) but if you can’t access it, you can make your own. I like to change things up a bit, so in the past I’ve made Mince Pie Cupcakes using mincemeat, and this year I made cookies!

These are simple cookies to make, with added mincemeat and mixed spice. “Mixed Spice” is something that you can buy easily in jars here, but if you can’t, it’s a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and ginger. If you’re in America, you could sub pumpkin pie spice, which I believe is a very similar thing.

I like to chill the dough for these cookies in the fridge for half an hour before baking. This makes it easier to shape the cookies onto the baking tray, but you don’t need to do this step if you are impatient.

Mince Pie Cookies

• Servings: 20 cookies
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Ingredients

• 130g vegan butter (I use Vitalite)
• 80g brown sugar
• 150g mincemeat
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 200g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt

Directions

1. Cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl.
2. Add the mincemeat and mix well to combine.
3. Sift in the mixed spice, flour, baking powder, and salt, and fold gently to combine.
4. Place the bowl of cookie dough in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes (or longer if you wish).
Preheat the oven to 170C/340F
5. Place tablespoon sized bits of dough on a baking tray, slightly apart from each other.
6. Put the cookies in the oven for 12-15 minutes, until lightly golden brown.

Marble Cookies – VeganMoFo Day 18

Today’s VeganMoFo prompt is to make something in greyscale, or black and white. As with yesterday, I must admit I uh, strayed a little from the prompt. I tried taking photos in black and white and they just didn’t look very good. And as for actual black and white, well the black tends to come from when I forget about whatever is cooking on the hob…

So I am going for the next best, two contrasting colours (and flavours), chocolate and vanilla! These are the same flavours as used in black and white cookies so I think I’m ok.

These cookies, which I call “marble cookies” are round like marbles and made with a half chocolate dough and a half vanilla dough.

I make them with icing sugar (or powdered sugar for the Americans!) which gives a smoother, almost fondant like texture to the cookie, and these are great little cookies to snack on or give as gifts!

Marble Cookies

• Servings: 24 cookies
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Ingredients

• 175g vegan butter
• 150g icing sugar
• 20g cocoa powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 300g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Directions

Preheat the oven to 160C/320F
1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and icing sugar.
2. Remove half the creamed mixture and place in a separate bowl.
3. To the first bowl, add the cocoa powder and mix well.
4. To the second bowl, add the vanilla extract and again mix well.
5. Now, to each bowl, add 150g (half) of the flour, and a quarter teaspoon of the bicarbonate of soda. Mix well.
6. Next make your marbles. Take a teaspoon sized bit of dough from each bowl, and in your hands, roll together to form a ball.
7. Place on a baking sheet, and repeat with the remaining dough.
8. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes, then leave to cool.