Funky Monkey Cookies

These cookies are adapted from the Cowboy Cookie Recipe in Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.  It is the sequel, if you will, to the fabulously delicious Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World which proved to yours truly that vegan can be even tastier – yes, friends, TASTIER – than the animal product laden treats I was so accustomed to.  Ask my former roommate, I damn near baked every cupcake in that book.  In fact, a picture of the ChoCoCos is the Cooktivist masthead.  But I digress….      

Yeah, they are HUGE

 

Yields 18-24 cookies       

2 cups quick-cooking oats
2 cups all-purpose whole wheat flour (white flour is fine too)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup canola oil
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup nondairy milk
1 TB ground flax seeds
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 medium banana, ripe but not brown
1 cup coconut flakes, unsweetened
1 heaping cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts       

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.  Yes, parchment paper is expensive, but you can use the same sheet about 3-5 times and it makes baking a ton easier.  Besides delicious unburnt cookies, no need to scrub the baking sheets between batches!        

2. In a medium bowl, stir together oats, flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.       

3. In a larger bowl, whisk together oil, sugar, brown sugar, milk, flax seeds and vanilla.  Unpeel banana and slice length-wise and then slice again into pieces.  You want the pieces small but not so small that it turns to mush.  Stir banana into wet mixture.       

4. Add about half of the flour mixture to the large bowl with the wet ingredients.  After half of flour is absorbed, stir in other half.       

5.  Last step is to add the coconut flakes, chocolate chips and walnuts.  If you can find them, large shaved unsweetened coconut flakes are amazing.  If you can’t find the big flakes, unsweetened small ones are fine too.  Just make sure they are unsweetened!!       

6.  If the dough is too dry, you and add a bit more milk.  You want everything to be sticking together but barely anything sticking to your hands or the bowl.        

7. Drop a golf ball sized scoop of dough about 2 inches apart on your lined baking sheets.  Flatten slightly with the back of a measuring cup dipped in water.  Bake for 14-16 minutes or until edges start to brown.  Let cookies rest on baking sheet for 5 minutes before moving to wire cooling racks (or your mouth, whichever!)       

These big cookies are sturdy and have a chewy goodness to them thanks to the banana and coconut.       

Cookie Love

 

***SUPER IMPORTANT MULTI-GENERATIONAL COOKTIVIST TIP: You should never, ever, ever add milk to dough (cookie or otherwise) unless there is already milk in the recipe!!!  Adding water to a recipe that doesn’t already have it can also spell disaster.  So what’s a Cooktivist to do if your cookie dough is too dry?  Booze!  Add a splash of brandy, cognac, amaretto or other sweet liquor.  The sugars in the booze will bind with the sugar in the recipe and will moisten your dough without ruining the chemical integrity.  You can send cards of thanks and gratitude to my grandmother for this one! ***    

Quick aside: I saw these canisters on Etsy and I am just in LOVE!  Because we buy a lot of our grains in bulk, I have half a cabinet filled with reused plastic food containers (you don’t use margarine and yogurt tubs for everything??) and plastic sandwich bags…until yesterday when tragedy struck and the barley bag ripped…I’ll be sweeping up barley for months.  Anywho, Etsy is this amazing site to buy and sell all things handmade and I could get lost in their color wheel for days on end.  Check out this recent article in the NYTimes that discusses the Etsy revolution and how you might not want to go and quit your day job just yet to sell knitted iPod coverlets.