Snickerdoodles

I had a mad craving for some snickerdoodles after reading so many posts about all the vegan bake sales that have been going down. I'm not a fan of plain sugar cookies, but put some frosting or some cinnamon-sugar on there and I'll apparently gobble them right up. I used the recipe from Vegan Yum Yum (there is a very similar one in Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar). Because the dough gets refrigerated for an hour after mixing this is a bit of a delayed indulgence, but the wait is definitely worth it--they came out great!

There was no exact proportion in the book for the amount of cinnamon or sugar to roll on the outsides, so I just sprinkled a little of both on a plate, mixed it up and went with that. Also, when I went to smush them from ball form to cookie form with a fork a lot of the edges broke and those four in the pic above were the best-looking. That was a little disappointing, but obviously doesn't matter once you get them in your mouth. These didn't seem to stay fresh very long, after a couple days they were quite crispy. We just chowed down on them and finished them up (poor us), but it's definitely something to keep in mind for the future.

Note: I believe Lauren has a recipe for these on her blog, but the site is not working today so I can't post it.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows

A good friend from college came to visit this weekend and knew that she wanted to make some cookies. I sat her down with VCIYCJ and this is the recipe she decided on. I'd also had my eye on these but thought that they looked like a bit too much work for standard cookie baking times. They do take a bit more time to prepare as first the peanut butter balls need to be rolled out and then covered in the chocolate dough, but the results were fabulous. We had a couple other friends over for a game night and they all got happily gobbled up.

I thought they looked more like UFOs than pillows. Luckily, they tasted like neither.

Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles

This cookie is from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. This was the first recipe I tried from it before it was even published; Isa was so kind as to post it on her blog. I made them the first time in addition with some lemon tea cookies as a thank you gift for a group of people I was working with. They were both big hits. This chocolate cookie especially. The first time I made them I halved the cayenne because I wasn't so sure about it--I'm not a big fan of chili and chocolate together--and it was still too much for me. Other people loved them, but I couldn't even eat a whole bite of one. Hello, gag reflex. However, the texture and the flavor seemed really great until the cayenne kicked in, so I wanted to try them again without any cayenne.

So that's what I did this time. Much better. Without the cayenne this is a nice crispy cinnamon and chocolate cookie. That's a winner in my book!