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Recipes

Vegan and Gluten Free Salted Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

This article is written by a student writer from the Spoon University at UCLA chapter.

Making vegan and gluten free cookies can be tricky and frustrating, but far from impossible. After a couple of trials, I finally created a recipe that delivers perfectly luxurious chocolate chip cookies.

Their beautifully caramelized and slightly crumbly exterior envelops a soft and slightly chewy center. They’re rich yet well-rounded, balanced with the right amount of sweetness, a hint of saltiness, and a slight nuttiness from the coconut oil. The chocolate chunks melt into silky pockets of goodness, whereas the chocolate chips fleck the cookie with subtle chocolatey bites and the cacao nibs add a crunchy and pleasantly bitter kick.

Basically, these cookies burst with flavor and texture and are sure to impress just about anyone.

Salted Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

Difficulty:BeginnerPrep time: 20 minutesCook time: 20 minutesTotal time: 40 minutesServings:16 servings

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F and line a baking tray or two with parchment paper.

  2. Photo by Leilani Gaugin-Rosenthaln

    Gather all of your ingredients. Pulverize your chia seeds in a grinder or blender, place them in a small bowl and add 3 tablespoons of water. This will be your chia “egg.”

  3. Photo by Leilani Gaugin-Rosenthaln

    In a large bowl, combine your flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

  4. Photo by Leilani Gaugin-Rosenthal

    In a separate bowl placed over a pot of simmering water, melt your coconut oil. Then, add your sugar, vanilla extract, and almond milk and stir until well combined.

  5. Photo by Leilani Gaugin-Rosenthal

    Using a spatula, mix your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients, along with your chia egg, until you obtain a thick, oily and slightly crumbly dough. If you try to form a ball with the dough, it should be able to hold its shape.

  6. Photo by Leilani Gaugin-Rosenthal

    Fold the mix of chocolate chips into the dough and then stick the dough in the fridge to set for about 20 minutes.

  7. Photo by Leilani Gaugin-Rosenthal

    Line a baking tray with parchment paper and roll your cooled dough into small-ish balls. You can place them fairly close to one another as they will not spread much.

  8. Photo by Leilani Gaugin-Rosenthal

    Place the dough balls in your preheated oven and then immediately turn it down to 375°F. This will allow the cookies to caramelize and crisp up on the bottoms. About 5 minutes into the baking, take the cookies out and flatten them slightly with a fork.

  9. Photo by Leilani Gaugin-Rosenthal

    Bake the cookies for a total of 15 minutes, then turn off the oven and let them sit for 5 minutes. Take them out and let them cool, preferably on a cooling rack.

  10. Photo by Leilani Gaugin-Rosenthal

    These cookies are best enjoyed slightly cooled. They’re fairly dense so you may feel satisfied after just one, but we won’t judge if you eat the whole batch.

Leilani Gaugin-Rosenthal is a second year at UCLA. She's a vegan health nut with an obsession with making food look and taste amazing. She's also one of those people you see in restaurants frantically snapping photos of her meals. When she’s not drinking coffee and dreaming up her next vegan concoction, you will find her playing electric guitar really loudly, running all over LA, or kitesurfing (because ocean + extreme sport = addicting).