Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies (1st attempt)

Backstory

Our dearest kumquat, aka Mermaid-Pilferer LuLu Pumpkin-Patch Cummins, was gracious enough to share with me her recipe for the greatest chocolate chip cookies in the world, which happen to also be vegan. I've never been a great baker, but these seemed easy enough to tackle so I saved the info for later.

Original Recipe Link shared by kumquat in IRC on 2020-06-29 in #meta.

Attempt #1

In this first attempt I made a few critical errors. First, I accidentally misread the baking powder as 1 tablespoon instead of teaspoon. I caught my mistake immediately afterwards and removed most of the excess, but my measurement was skewed. Second, my liquid measurements must have been off as the mixture ended quite dry. It's possible that my liquids were correct and my flour was the culprit also. In the original recipe the flour was measured in cups rather than weight.

After chilling and resting the dough for a day it was difficult to form the balls on the pan and took great pressure from my hands to get them to stick. Eventually they fit the pan and baking commenced.

Regardless of these challenges the cookies themselves tasted delicious. They were a bit crunchier than I'd prefer, but the flavor overall was excellent.

Recipe

This is the recipe I used. It is nearly verbatim from the website linked above, but with measurements mostly converted to weights and metric. There may be some small changes in the text as well.

Ingredients

• 250 grams all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
• 1 1/4 cups dark chocolate chips
• 100 grams white sugar
• 110 grams packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon water
• coarse-grained sea salt, for garnish

Directions

• In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the chocolate chips to the flour mixture and toss to coat.

• In a separate large bowl, whisk the sugars briskly with the canola oil and water until smooth and incorporated, about 2 minutes. Note: Use fresh, soft light brown sugar. If there are clumps, break them up with the back of a spoon or your hand before whisking.

• Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture, and then stir with a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula until just combined and no flour is visible. Do not overmix.

• Cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for at least 12 hours and up to 24 hours. Do not skip this step.

• Preheat the oven to 175°C. Line two rimmed sheet pans with parchment paper. Remove dough from the refrigerator and use an ice cream scoop or a spoon to portion dough into 2-inch mounds. Freezing the balls of dough for 10 minutes before baking or chilling them will help retain shape better while baking.

• Sprinkle the balls of dough with coarse-grained sea salt and bake for 11 minutes, or until the edges are just golden. Do not overbake.

• Let cool completely before serving.