Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Cups

These delicious little bites have the texture of a chocolate chip cookie bar but baked in individual portions in a muffin tin. They are like deep dish cookies with extra chew factor. Genius - yes! Did I come up with it - no, but I do love it. I think this style of chocolate chip cookies was on trend years ago as far as foodie trends go and they have been on my list to make for a while. I’m really late to the cookie party you guys, regretfully so as these have quickly become our family’s favorite cookies to make on a weekly basis.

I have partnered up with Bob’s Red Mill to make a recipe using their flour and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try these cookie cups. Bob’s Red Mill uses high-quality whole grains to satisfy all vegan, paleo, and gluten-free friendly cooking and baking needs which include these vegan chocolate chip cookie cups. Their unbleached white all-purpose organic flour is a staple in our home and is just the best for baking my favorite goodies including pies, cookies, and brownies.

You know I’m always looking out for a great vegan recipe and usually one that requires very basic ingredients (meaning no vegan butter or vegan cheese or anything that I don’t know much about and would need lots of experimenting to see which products I would like of each ingredient). I found said recipe in Food 52 Genius Desserts Book. They have a version of these vegan cookies in it and I knew these were the ones I had to try baking in my muffin tin. These are eggless and they also have no butter in them. They use water and a neutral oil for the wet ingredients. See what I mean - simple ingredients! The recipe suggested any neutral oil and I went with the one that they suggested and one that I had which was grape-seed oil. Grape-seed oil is one of the most neutral oils you can use, nearly flavourless. Sunflower oil is also another good one. You can definitely use olive oil or coconut oil but be prepared for the flavours to transfer.

What is the secret to Instagram’s chocolate puddle game? Let me tell you a secret about the secret - a lot of it is smearing extra melty chocolate over the existing chocolate, so don’t totally buy into it. Hee hee! Really I have seen it in posts and it’s so obvious that they have smeared Nutella or melted chocolate over their chocolate goodies to make them look melty, and that is totally ok because it’s real food they are using to achieve the look and can still be eaten after the shoot, but there is a yummier and truer way of achieving the puddles. Just add more chocolate before baking the cookies off. You can either reserve a few of the chips from the recipe for this purpose or add a few extra to the recipe. I like breaking the chocolate discs in half and sticking a couple extra halves into the tops of each cookie scooped mounds. Once they are out of the oven and cool enough to transfer and you want that drool-worthy shot, just dip the edge of a spoon into the chocolate disk swirl and pull away and you will get the meltiest chocolate puddle you have ever seen. You’re welcome-bonus you get a few extra pieces of chocolate in each bite.

Have you made chocolate chip cookies in a muffin tin yet? If not it’s totally a must. You will have zero regrets and I would not judge you if you served these cups with a scoop of ice cream (vegan if you’re keeping things vegan) over them. Plan ahead when making these to allow time to refrigerate them and allow the flour to hydrate and the flavours to fully develop - seriously it’s worth the wait! These vegan ones are so so good and so simple to make. They don’t even taste vegan (I love vegan food so that statement is meant for all those who turn there nose up at it) - no one would suspect them. They just taste like darn good cookies! Let me know what ya think!

I have partnered up with Bob’s Red Mill to bring you this fabulous recipe, but all opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting Olive & Mango.

Recipe

Makes approx. 12-16

Ingredients

• 2 cups Bob’s Red Mill unbleached white all-purpose organic flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• 1 ¼ cup of bittersweet or semi sweet vegan chocolate chips, chunks or discs (I used a mixture of each)
• ½ cup white sugar
• ½ cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ cup + 1 tablespoon of neutral oil (I used grapeseed)
• 5 Tablespoons of water
• Flaky sea salt for topping

Directions

1. In a medium size bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and sea salt.
2. Add the chocolate chips to the flour mixture and toss to coat
3. In a large mixing bowl whisk together the sugars with the oil, water and vanilla extract until very smooth and incorporated approximately two minutes making sure there are no clumps of sugar remaining.
4. Stir the flour mixture into the oil mixture just until combined and no streaks of flour remain then cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough for at least 12 to 24 hours
5. Remove the dough from the fridge when ready to bake and preheat the oven to 350°F
6. Grease your muffin tins (makes approximately 12 to 16 cookie cups depending on the size of scoop).
7. Use a cookie scoop and scoop the dough into the muffin pan. For super chewy cookies freeze the balls of dough in the tin for 10 minutes before baking.
8. Remove the muffin tins with cookie dough from the freezer and sprinkle with flaky sea salt.
9. Bake until the edges are just golden in approximately 12 to 13 minutes, rotating the muffin tins halfway through baking. Do not overbake, the cookies will still continue to bake out of the oven in muffin tin.
10. Let the cookies cool in the pan until firm enough to transfer to a cooling rack, about 5 minutes.
11. Slide them out of the tin with a butter knife or small spatula, and on to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely or do as I do and eat them while they are warm and still a bit gooey.
12. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Adapted from Food 52