Experiment in Vegan Baking

So, I decided to take a risk and try something that I've absolutely never thought I would do. That is to try and bake vegan. Now this means using no dairy or eggs. Why in the world would I do such a thing? I love dairy and eggs, this is too true. In fact I love dairy so much that I'd marry it if I could. I'm serious! The only problem is, we have a rocky love/hate relationship. I LOVE it and it HATES me. It's really sad for a relationship to be so one-sided so I had to end it. I just couldn't take the repercussions of having dairy in my life anymore. So I've moved on after a bout of sadness and discovered a whole new world! Vegan! I discovered this when I took a trip to Trader Joe's with my mom and I was browsing around. I randomly looked on a shelf by the bread and there was a row of cookies. The one that caught my eye was a bag of Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. A light bulb went on in my head. I remember that Vegan meant no dairy or eggs. Mainly the no dairy thing caught my attention because I don't have an issue with eggs. After skimming the ingredients I ran to my mom and said "Look! Look! I can eat these!!!" She laughed and told me to throw them in the cart. Yay! Now getting to the crux of the story....

I came home today, popped two scrumptious cookies(as a side note my whole family loved them as well, they didn't even know they were vegan until I pointed it out) in my mouth and "ding" light bulb. I had the sudden urge to look up vegan cookie recipes and try my hand at them. I found a good website, compiled the ingredients and began. I didn't have flax seeds so I substituted applesauce for the eggs. It was much easier because I would have had to blend the flax seeds and soy milk into a paste. Not too difficult, but I'd rather open a jar than run to the store for flax seeds. Okay, so mix mix mix, taste the batter, brother tastes the batter(yes, we can because there are no eggs), and it tastes SO good.

The consistency looks like regular cookies and I start placing them on the baking sheet...then my brother starts talking about milk and I realized I didn't put the soy milk in! OH NO! I run to the oven and pull out the cookies, put them back with the batter and put the milk, stir, and UH Oh...they look runny now. I mix more and wonder what happened. Jennifer strikes again with her failing brain power. I forget that the recipe only calls for soy milk if I am mixing it with flax seeds. My brother has a great idea and suggest I just pour them into the baking sheet and make sheet brownies. Great idea Scott! Thanks. They fill the house with a delightful chocolaty aroma as they bake and lickety split they are done.

Then it's taste test time. I have to say they are good, not great. The batter by itself actually tasted better and Scott agreed. Although we all agreed they are different, the fact that the have no eggs and dairy makes them downright good. I'll try another recipe again and not mess with adding things when I don't need too, but I can always just run to Trader Joe's and get my sweet fix for about 3 bucks a bag. Oh yeah!