Cookie experiment – and it worked!

I’ve had this cookbook for a long time now, but more recently I’ve been reading it. I never knew just how informational this book actually is! Well last night I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies for my kids lunches and I used his recipe, which is pretty much the same as the tollhouse cookie recipe. So, I got the butter out, put the brown sugar and sugar in and started to mix. I went to the fridge to get the eggs, but guess what? I had no eggs! Rats! I looked at the clock. It was 9:00 p.m., I was in my jammies…should I just put my raincoat on and run out? No, I didn’t have that much energy. Then I remembered my fried Celine who is Vegan and has a great blog called Have Cake Will Travel. I didn’t need eggs…I had ground flax seed! Did you know that a lot of Vegans use ground flax seed in place of eggs? I had read before that in place of one egg, you can use 1 tablespoon of ground flax seed mixed with 3 tablespoons warm water. So, in place of 2 eggs, I measured out 2 tablespoons of the ground flax seed and 6 tablespoons of warm water.

I continued adding the rest of the ingredients and the batter looked just like it should have. I put the batter on the cookie sheet and set my timer for 7 minutes. I have a very unreliable oven, so I always go low in case they get burned! Well, when the timer went off, I opened the oven and the cookies were…ummm….flat and crispy! Hmmm…what to do. I hate wasting batter, so I added some more flour and tried again. This time they were a little better, but I decided to add even more flour and try a third time. Well, the third time was a charm! They turned out just like regular cookies, and you never would have known there were no eggs in the batter!

Basic Chocolate Chip cookies adapted from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons ground flax seed mixed with 6 tablespoons warm water
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips

Mix the butter and sugar together. In a small bowl, add the ground flax seed and water and stir together. Add that to the butter and sugar mixture and add the rest of the ingredients until combined.

My oven is weird, but these were done at 7-8 minutes at 375, but you oven might be more normal and it could go up to 10 minutes.

My family loved these! So, even if you don’t have all the ingredients you need, sometimes you can always improvise!

Have you ever used ground flax seed in place of eggs in recipes??