Nothing says loving like Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies from your oven.

My best good friend Allison over at VAMH has been eating vegan for over a year now. I’m so proud of her for that huge accomplishment.

Allison is a giver. She is also incredibly talented at designing super cute invitations and holiday cards. She designed our 2010 Christmas card which I LOVED!. She has designed so many amazing cards for our mutual friends. Here is one of my favorites that she made for our friends Aly and Todd:

LOVED IT!!

She is also creating Garrett’s 3rd birthday invites, thank you notes, banner and cupcake toppers for me. Check out this awesomeness!

The invite:

And the thank you notes:

I am so in love with these cards!! How cute are they? Perfection for our monkey themed birthday party!

AND she designed all of those free of charge. Seriously? This chick is unbelievable! I just love you, Allison. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for being so kind and putting so much time and effort into these cards for me. You are seriously awesome, my friend.

I started thinking of ways to show my gratitude, and since I’m Southern and unskinny something edible immediately came to mind. But it’s not like I could just jump online and order her a dozen chocolate covered strawberries because the vegan thing put a wrench in most gift basket chocolate. I went to Whole Foods in search of stuff to make her a personalized gift basket. I wanted to include some vegan cookies but there were like three varieties and they looked more like granola bars than chocolate chip cookies.

So I passed.

When I turned around to leave my eyes landed on a package of vegan chocolate chips. I knew that I should try to make homemade cookies since those always taste better than packaged anyway. I had no idea about a recipe, so I went looking for the book aisle. I found it immediately and within a few seconds I spotted The Joy of Vegan Baking cookbook with the most mouthwatering cookies on the cover.

I opened the cookbook and it literally fell open right to the recipe for the cookies, so I was like, well, apparently fate is telling me Allison needs some cookies.

I found the rest of the ingredients with some help from the girl working in the floral department. When I asked her where to find Ener-G egg replacer she tried to sell me cage-free vegetarian eggs from the cooler. I told her an egg is an egg when you’re vegan, regardless of whether they spent their lives roaming free on the range. Finally she steered me in the right direction and we found that egg replacer. I’m pretty sure that stuff is the key to these cookies turning out so well.

Ok, yall want the play by play on these cookies? Here are all the ingredients I used:

4 1/2 tsp Ener-G egg replacer
6 T water
1 cup Earth Balance Vegan buttery sticks
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 tsp Watkins vanilla extract
2 1/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 to 2 cups nondairy semisweet chocolate chips

First off, blend the egg replacer and water in a small bowl until thick and frothy. Here is the egg replacer after I blended it up with the hand mixer:

Then, cream together the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla.

I was excited to use my new Beater Blade for the first time! I loved it. And I might have licked it.

From there you add the egg replacer, flour, soda and salt. Then mix in the chips and you’ve got yourself some vegan cookie dough!

Here they are ready to be put in the oven..

And here is the finished result:

Seriously… DROOLING.

These suckers were GOOD, and y’all know I’m a cookie connoisseur! I was very impressed by these. I’d be interested to know the fat/ calorie content difference in normal ones… Shoulda added that up. My oversized cookie scoops made 21 cookies, so I decided we should eat three of them and leave an even dozen and a half to send to Allison.

Here is Garrett chowing down on his cookie:

He loved them! Score!!

And here is J eating his… with a solo cup of milk. Klassy.

I vacuumm sealed them before sending them to her so they would stay fresh on their trip from Alabama to Minnesota. I included some vegan hot chocolate mix and some of her favorite peppermint tea for good measure.

Allison LOVED her cookies. And I LOVE my personalized invitations and cards.

It’s a win-win for everyone!