Vegan baking-1st attempt

I recently bought this book, and I am very excited to try out some of the cookie recipes it contains, and today, I did my first attempt at vegan baking.

I decided to do a classic, chocolate chip cookies.  This recipe replaced butter, and eggs with oil and tapioca flour.  I doubled the recipe, so I mixed 1 cup of brown sugar,

1/2 cup of white sugar,

1 1/3 cups canola oil,

1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk,

and 2 Tbsp of Tapioca Flour.

I mixed it until it thickened and looked like caramel.

Next came the dry goods.  3 cups of AP flour, and a tsp each of baking soda and salt.

Stir in vegan chocolate chips-this was hard for me to find, by the way.  My usual chip of choice has milk solids in it, so I had to go up to the 72% cocoa to get them to be vegan.

After mixing, my cookie dough looked weird...

The chips weren't staying in the batter, and it was so oily.

I added more flour, and it was still weird.

Maybe more flour and mix it by hand?

Weirdest cookie dough I have ever seen.  Oh well, let's try to bake them.

After 8 minutes in a 350 degree oven, they changed color, and the chips melted beautifully.

Had to squish the next batch flatter.

And done!  Let's have a taste.

They don't taste quite right, they taste kind of...vegan.

Now, don't misunderstand me, they don't taste bad at all.  They just don't taste like my usual recipe for chocolate chip cookies.  There is a nuttiness to them, which is tasty, especially since I didn't add nuts to the recipe.  Maybe it was the extra flour, and extra kneading that led to this flavor.  Or maybe instead of using the oil next time, I should use vegetable shortening, to make a crispier, buttery cookie.

Maybe my next vegan baking adventure will be a bit easier now that I have tried this recipe.  I think I'll stick to my regular chocolate chip recipe, but this was a fun, and still tasty experience!

Enjoy.