Ovenly's (vegan) chocolate chip cookies

Hard on the heels of trying Ovenly's peanut butter cookies (wonderful, by the way), I read about their "secretly vegan" chocolate chip cookies from Food52!  Now, you probably know that the photography over at Food52 is amazing so yes, the cookies looked incredible but, more importantly, the description really intrigued me.

Vegan chocolate chip cookies?  Not being vegan, I never gave the idea much thought. What happens in this case is eggs have been removed from the equation and the typical butter is likewise replaced with oil and water.  How crazy does that sound? And how neat if, in fact, you can make delectable chocolate chip cookies this way because how often do you drop the idea of making cookies when you realize you haven't the time to wait for butter to soften?  

So I entered this little experiment both excited but a little skeptical as well.  However, I held on tight to the promise that these cookies would be good, regardless of the ingredient list and whether or not they were vegan (*note: not being any expert on the topic, you should make sure the sugar and chocolate you use are vegan if that's important to you).

Another thing going for these cookies...they're so easy to make!  As with the peanut butter cookies, you don't even need a mixer.  The only thing you need is a little patience to let the cookie dough sit in the fridge 12-24 hours before baking.

So in case you also saw these cookies from Food52 and wondered about them like I did, I can tell you they are indeed "genius"!  Had I just been tasting them, I would not think they were anything other than a very good chocolate chip cookie (my son and husband agree).  Once baked, they look and feel everything like your "regular" chocolate chip cookie.  If you want to nitpick, I would say you might miss the butter flavor some but these cookies still have plenty of caramel notes and flavor from the brown sugar (I used dark brown).

In the vain of keeping things simple, I used 60% dark chocolate chips (instead of chopping up a bar of chocolate) and these cookies turned out the way I like them. Texturally, they're crisp along the edges and soft and chewy in the center.  There's the caramel flavor I mentioned and plenty of dark chocolate in every bite.  It's really good stuff and a great chocolate chip cookie to add to your rotation.  My family and I polished our little batch of these cookies off in no time.

Ovenly's peanut butter cookies, with chocolate

When Smitten Kitchen wrote about Ovenly's salted peanut butter cookies, I was left with an incredible urge to taste them.  

Sometimes a recipe, and the story, just calls out to you, and for various reasons, this is one of those I had to make quick.  I love peanut butter and I've enjoyed some great PB treats (like these monster cookies and sandwich cookies, for example) but there have surely been times when peanut butter baked goods fall short of the flavor mark and you end up thinking you would've been better off just slathering the good stuff on to your morning toast.

So these highly-touted cookies, which promised intense peanut butter flavor, had to be tried.  There was little standing in my way because they only require a few ingredients and hardly more than a bowl and whisk to do the job.

You do need an ice cream scoop.  Okay, you don't actually even need that but with all the talk about the shape of these cookies (domed) and the marks on them (striations made from scooping cold dough with an ice cream scoop), I was entranced by the whole thing.  Believe it or not, I even went out and bought a new ice cream scoop. For baking, I already had a 1/4-cup scoop and a #50 scoop, which equals to a little over a tablespoon.  The large one is usually too large and I've always thought the smaller one was just a little too small!  Deb used the #40 scoop (1 2/3 tablespoons) for these cookies and I realized that's what I've been missing so I went out and got one!

Grating a little chocolate to add to these peanut butter cookies

I went ahead and added chocolate to these flourless peanut butter cookies.  Typical of me.  While I know that chocolate probably wasn't necessary per se, I simply can't resist the notion of adding chocolate whenever I can.  And the result?  As Mary from The Great British Baking Show would say: "these are scrummy!"  That would be scrumptious or yummy...in other words, really good!

I was tempted to call these "peanut butter-chocolate truffles" because these little mounds (which look remarkably like large unshelled walnuts, actually) have this fudgy, moist texture very much like a truffle.  The outside is firm and slightly crisp, the inside is very moist and a little chewy.  The flavor is 100% peanut butter, with a hint of chocolate in my case.  If you like peanut butter cups, I think you'll be a fan of these cookies!