Vegan Snickerdoodles basking in the sunlight

I almost posted about cabbage tonight, but I thought with the collards last week and the kale a few posts ago, I’d give you something sweet instead.

I was lucky enough to experience the best flippin’ snickerdoodle of my entire life last April when I was in South Texas for my husband’s band’s 15 year reunion show. We had to go to Austin to pick up the other guitarist and decided to stop by Toy Joy, our favorite toy store in the whole wide world. Toy Joy now has just closed their extension, Dhaba Joy, the sweetest, cutest, most wonderful coffee shop and cafe ever to exist. Luckily the two bakers from Dhaba Joy are still baking. I notice their snickerdoodles are only $22/dz. A steal, I tell you. The lemony accent, the cinnamon, the sugar, the softness (without being raw) of the cookie. Absolutely the best snickerdoodle I’ve ever had. Ever!

And because I’m too afraid to ask them for their recipe, even if I promise to NEVER share it except for in already-baked form with friends, I’m left searching for the perfect snickie. Here’s the best I’ve found. It’s not Dhaba Joy’s version, but you won’t be disappointed. It is downright delish.

Vegan Snickerdoodles (from VeganMania via VeganCore)

1 cup vegan butter
1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
4 Tbsp. soy milk whipped with 2 Tbsp. cornstarch
3 cups unbleached white flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. tapioca starch or cornstarch

Topping:
2 Tbsp. cinnamon
4 Tbsp. white sugar
1 Tbsp. cocoa powder (optional)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

In large bowl, cream together the vegan butter and sugar until smooth. Add the vanilla and cornstarch/soymilk mixture and beat until well-mixed.

In a smaller bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and tapioca/cornstarch. Stir this into wet ingredients and combine well.

In small bowl combine topping ingredients.

Begin rolling the cookie dough into balls of about 3 Tbsp. each. Roll each ball in the topping mixture until completely coated and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Continue until all dough is used. Using the bottom of a glass, press down on each ball until they are about an inch thick.

Bake for 12-14 minutes, and no more. The cookies should still seem very soft when you remove them from the oven. Let cool on sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.

Makes 30 cookies.

Bridal Shower Dessert Table

I offered to help throw a bridal shower for Midge (friend and scrumpdilly reader). My main task was the dessert table. Bake, bake, bake, I did for over 14 hours.

72 cookies for gift bags (lemon butter cookies, molasses cookies, and swirled sugar cookies)
60 cookies for cookie dish (molasses cookies and swirled sugar cookies)
54 cupcakes (chocolate with vanilla buttercream frosting lined with blue sugar, lemon with lemon buttercream frosting and raspberry fruit gem)

2 vegetarians
1 vegan (me)
21 omnivores who didn’t know the difference; all goods were a huge hit!

I had a great time baking. And an even better time reflecting on it afterwards.

Chocolate-Coconut-Oat Bars

I had at least three baking disasters last week. “At least” meaning, that’s all I can remember; there might’ve been more. Oh no. That’s right. It was the thermostat on my car that went bad, then the hot water heater in the house. Plus the three kitchen disasters. I needed something easy and reliable to counteract the losing. So I revisited the Choco-Coco Bar.

The first time I ever made this bar, I used the recipe from The Chicago Diner Cookbook, but the “crust” portion of the bar wasn’t a thriller. It was dry. What luck, though, in making my normal vegan blog rounds, I stumbled upon a very similar recipe at Urban Vegan. Thankfully, within about 20 minutes, my week filled with disasters turned into easy deliciousness. Got to get me more o’ dat!

Chocolate-Coconut-Oat Bars (from the Urban Vegan blog)

Bottom Layer:
1 1/2 cups uncooked oatmeal (instant is fine)
2 T. coconut oil
1/4 cup agave nectar

Top Layer:
1 cup dark chocolate buttons or chips (vegan)
1/2 cup pecans*
1 cup shredded dried coconut
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix “bottom” ingredients and press into oiled 8×8 or 9×9 baking dish. Mix “top” ingredients and spread atop crust. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden. Let cool and cut into squares. Makes 9 large or 18 small bars. Optional: Add 2 Tbsp. dried raisins, cranberries, cherries, or cacao nibs to “top”.

*Urban Vegan calls for walnuts. I’m partial to the pecan.

Roll, roll, roll your dough

Shy away from rolling dough because you hate the idea of throwing flour all over your counter, and you just don’t like messes (me!)? Maybe you like baking all the more when things are made easier (me!). That’s when you use this completely brilliant dough-rolling technique I learned from my cookie testing experiences. This technique is so genius, you’ll never, ever go back to rolling dough any other way. Thanks to Garrick and Kelly for choosing me as a recipe tester and for sharing their complete genius with me. I love y’all for it.

Technique: Place dough in one-gallon zip-top plastic bag. Close top. Begin rolling dough, until bag is full and dough extends to all edges. Push air out through small opening at top of bag. Reclose bag and store in refrigerator or freezer until ready to use. When ready, cut plastic bag away from dough along edges.

Result: Uniformly thick dough in perfect, square shape.

Clean-up: None.

To occupy you, while I run around the country with my 18-wheelin’ driving husband - yes, I’m inside the rig with him - here are some cookies I tested before hitting the highways. Reports soon about being on the road as a trucker’s vegan wife. But first, dessert!

Zesty Lime Coconut Wedding Cookies

Texture: soft and moist, but crumbly enough that you might take some heat for it
Taste: lime and coconut play perfectly well together
Rating: 3.5 dough balls

Crispy Pinwheels

Texture: crispy and crunchy
Taste: like carmalized sugar with an ever-so-slight chocolate taste
Rating: 4 dough balls

Almond Ladies Kisses

Texture: soft, but expected crunchy
Taste: overpowered by almond extract, couldn’t taste the chocolate
Rating: 2 dough balls

Ba-jeezum! I did a ton of birthday baking from mid-June ’til now. From the Severed Unicorn Head Superstore birthday cuppers (post below) to all the human birthdays, I may as well have climbed into the oven myself, just like Hansel and Gretel. Luckily, for all involved, I kept my oven playtime to me staying on the outside.

“Thin Mint” Cookies

Sugar-Crusted Shortbread Cookies

Lime-Coconut Cupcakes

Tiramisu Cupcakes

Thanks to the cookie testing I’m doing, I had some pretty gourmet-looking cookies to give away. Cookie tray worthy. I had some damn tasty cupcakes in there, too. The Tiramisu cuppers ended up kind of ugly, but boy, did they taste like a little bit of paradise. Too bad I have to help eat some of those. You know, before they “go”.

Birthday-like cupcakes for the Severed Unicorn Head Superstore art opening

When my friends hired me (read: they asked; I said yes) to make cupcakes for their art opening, this is the guidance they gave, “It’s a birthday party. So something birthday is good.”

So I did some math. Severed unicorn heads + birthday parties = colors. Lots of colors. So that’s what I went with.

Ingredients for colorful, birthday-looking cupcakes for a Severed Unicorn Head Superstore party

Basic vanilla cupcakes from VCTOTW
Basic chocolate cupcakes from VCTOTW
Vanilla buttercream frosting from VCTOTW
Natural food dye for pink coloring
Sprinkles
Trader Joe’s Fruit Gels, halved

Iced Fudge Brownie Cookies

Yippee, I have the best after-work job ever! I get to test cookie recipes for Garrick and Kelly. COOKIES! I’m downright gleeful with this gig. Anyway, what you see above is part of the first batch I tested for them. As you might guess, my friends and I didn’t last long with the finished product; we give these babies, 5 big, giant, dough balls!

Texture: soft, moist, crumble-free, ever-so-slight crunch on the exterior

Taste: rich, chocolate, brownie-like

Rating: 5 dough balls