Vegan Bake Sale and Olivia's Cookies!!

So today my middle "Sprout", Olivia, baked her very famous and much-requested Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies, and I have to say, we actually resisted eating most of them (a VERY difficult feat, believe me!).

Olivia made these cookies to donate to the SideCar Bake Sale. SideCar is an all-vegan grocery in Seattle that supports Pigs Peace, an awesome animal sanctuary just out of Seattle.

All proceeds from the Bake Sale, of course, went to Pigs Peace.

We couldn't stay long, but the bake sale, organised by my friend and fellow-blogger Bethany, had the makings of being a huge success!

She recruited a lot of great bakers!! Tables were loaded with every imaginable goody and we made sure to purchase a bag full before heading home. We're huge cookie fans, but I think our favorite bake-sale discovery were the Gingersnaps and some little savory, "cheesy" animal crackers in the shape of tiny pigs. SO YUMMY!! I'm going to hunt down the cracker recipe

here soon

We decorated a little sign for our cookies and make pink-and-gold tags for each bag, listing ingredients.

And you'll notice Barbie came along? The pink and bling was specially for Barbie, of course... (I had to borrow these pictures from my daughter.) As you may or may not know, she (Olivia, not Barbie) is also a blogger and writes (when school and work allow) about the vegetarian world from Barbie's point-of-view.

Check out "The Adventures of Veggie Barbie and Carnivore Ken" for some pretty entertaining reading.

It's been posted before, but here's the cookie recipe again, should you have missed it. Enjoy.

Olivia's Amazing Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1/3 cup coconut oil

1/4 cup Smart Balance Light (or regular Earth Balance will work fine too, though for some reason SB Light just works the best, - trust Olivia on this)

3/4 cup white sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 heaping Tbsp. flax meal

1 heaping Tbsp. Ener-G egg replacer powder

1/4 cup soy, almond or hemp milk

1 tsp. vanilla (use real vanilla if you can)

2 cups vegan chocolate chips (Good quality vegan chocolate chips are absolutely essential here. Guittard Semi-Sweet is my favorite - available in regular grocery stores and VEGAN!)

1.) Preheat oven to 375 F.

2.) In a small bowl, mix soy milk VERY WELL (until creamy) with Ener-G egg replacer and flax meal using a fork. Set aside.

3.) In another bowl, mix together flour, baking soda and salt. Set Aside.

4.) In a large bowl, cream together coconut oil, Smart Balance and sugars. Add soy/flax mixture and vanilla. Beat with electric mixer until smooth.

5.) Gradually add flour mixture to liquids. Stir in chocolate chips.

6.) Drop by small well-rounded teaspoonfuls (actually less than a teaspoon, more like 3/4 tsp) onto ungreased cookie sheet.

7.) Bake for 8 - 10 min. until lightly golden. Watch the time, it depends on the pan. This produces a bite-size, melt-in-your-mouth, chewy cookie.

**If you want crisp cookies, or larger cookies, play with the baking time by just a few moments.

8.) Let cool on the pan 5- 6 min., just until set enough to remove to wire rack. They will be very soft and fragile, but will set up as they cool.

Let pan cool before baking more.

You can add nuts, raisins, coconut, whatever... but we like them just as they are!