| One word: yum. When I was offered a copy of this book, Vegan Cookes Invade Your Cookie Jar by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, I said yes mainly because I love one of the authors (Isa Chandra). She's done a few other cookbooks but she's also got several free recipes online at The Post Punk Kitchen and I've tried a few. It's not for no reason that she's a bit of a cult favorite among vegans.
So here's the review: The book's great. I love it. The cookies include all of the classics plus innovative varieties like Tahini Lime Cookies and Sweet Wine Biscuits with Sesame. Plus it starts with sections on ingredients and equipment that make clear what you need, why you need it, and when and how you can substitute. They even include a gluten free flour recipe that you can use to replace regular flour. That's wonderful because, let me tell you - if one dietary restriction is harder, once you start mixing and matching dietary restrictions you're really screwed. Vegan cookies? Sure. Gluten free? No problem. Vegan and gluten free? Umm, eat some fresh berries for dessert. So I like it that this book actually provides an option there.
Tonight we used the book to make brownies. I thought about doing it together with my boyfriend's kids but I didn't want them to catch me putting tofu in the brownies. I made a few substitutions. I used applesauce instead of canola oil to reduce the fat and 1 tsp arrowroot powder instead of 1 tbsp corn starch because we didn't have any corn starch. The result is fantastic. They are a bit fluffier and more cake-like than I'd like in a brownie, but they are better than ANY boxed mix you will ever find. The only way to beat them would be to use a from-scratch recipe with tons of eggs and butter. Or maybe they would be better if you follow the recipe as written instead of substituting like I did. And I have a hunch that with some experimentation, you could find a way to make them denser and fudgier using avocado.
UPDATE: One more thought: You don't need to be a vegan to use the recipes in this book. You can't taste the tofu in the brownies. And most people don't eat bacon-flavored cookies, so it's not like any meat eater would be giving something up by eating a vegan cookie. All in all, it's a painless way to cut down your carbon footprint without noticeably giving anything up. The only aspect that might be annoying to non-vegans is that the recipes call for ingredients you might not keep in the house (like soy milk). |
