Product Review: Bountiful Vegan Cookies

My quick history of packaged vegan cookies.

By: jess

As an early vegan, I really wanted to like Boston Cookies. They were packaged vegan cookies available in both states I spent time in during my college years, New York and Massachusetts. I was excited to find them in random health stores and ate them, even ate the peanut butter blondie that had a lot of nerve going public. Eventually, I learned to pass on them and to bake my own cookies, because I didn't love Boston Cookies. I loved my own cookies and I was so proud of them! And what's the point of a dessert that's not truly satisfying? Silly, desperate vegan.

Nowadays, there are tons of tastier packaged vegan cookies, I have the options of vegan bakeries in Portland, vegan cookies at vegan-friendly coffee shops, restaurants & carts and homemade cookies. My god, this makes me remember the day I discovered Mint Newman-Os...

But I digress. It's time for a product review.

When Bountiful Vegan offered to send me free samples, I said yes. 1) I like free things. 2) I like sharing free things. 3) I was curious!

I first visited their website, and wondered if it was for real, there's a..how do you say..Cafe Gratitude vibe to it. These cookies are looking to do a little more than feed your sweet tooth, if you get what I mean:

You must state your intention accompanied by a good feeling to attract what you want. Each delicious cookie has a powerful written statement of intent inside the package.

How trippy! How curious!

Cooooooooookies

Results

I broke these out at a cocktail party a couple months ago with vegans and omnis, all foodies, actually. The biggest winner was the Chocolate Chip Orange, which sure had an orange ting. Personally, I wasn't a fan of that one and preferred the Pineapple Coconut - it wasn't your everyday cookie. The runner up favorite of the group was the Lemon Snickerdoodle - a tangy take on the sugar coated classic. It was a sturdy cookie-they were all on the firm side, they're travelling cookies, after all. Had it not been a cocktail party, I would have tried dunking into milk or coffee. Again, everyone seemed to dig the three cookies I wasn't into, strange day.

The names are really, really great.

So, would I buy these? As a vegan Portlander, it's not realistic and I have options I prefer all around me. I'm pretty sure I passed two vegan bake sales on my way to work. Even Whole Foods makes freshly baked vegan cookies. I can't resist freshly baked vs. packaged, who can?

That being said, I'm all for these inspired cookies hitting regional cafes and health stores that are missing vegan treats!

Go Vegan for the Cookies!

Roasted Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

(half sprinkled with coarse sea salt)

Lots of Try Vegan Week tabling and Vegan Prom ticket selling took place over the weekend. And at every event I was at, I made sure there were free vegan baked goods.

Sharing scrumptious vegan cookies = just the type of vegan I am.

Altogether, I baked three batches of Isa's new chocolate chip cookie variations, two pans of raspberry chocolate chips blondies, oatmeal espresso butterscotch cookies, citrus coconut glitters and raspberry swirl East Coast coffeecake. Many of those are from Terry and Isa's upcoming Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. Wink, wink.

I found a little bit of extra time to chop veggies for kabobs and a giant pan of lower fat new farm mac & cheeze for the opening day Vegan BBQ. The turn out was fantastic!

At the Hawthorne Street Fair

My friend Chelsea tabled all day - she's the author of Flavor Vegan and giving a talk on Vegan Baking tonight at Hungry Tiger Too at 8pm I'm planning on checking out. She knows her flours and egg replacers intimately!

I also sold tickets for vegan prom at the 12th and Hawthorne food carts late night outside of Whiffies deep fried pies (including vegan double chocolate, chocolate creme and savory tofu pot pie), and will be doing so THIS Friday night.

That's also the night of the Vegan Pub Crawl starting at Report Lounge on E Burnside and 11th (same location as prom!!) at 9pm. Maeve and I will be breaking off and heading to the carts for 11pm to sell!

Come visit, eat vegan cookies & buy your ticket - it's the following night!

Purposely underbaked by request (whoa-oh)

espresso oatmeal roasted almond chocolate chip

Oh hey, I bought more vegetables this weekend. Hollywood Farmers Market.

Nice to stop by there! Heirloom tomatoes omg omg omg omg.

One more time! Try Vegan Week is now happening! Check out the schedule here.

Yeah, the U CAN'T TOUCH THIS! Vegan Prom is this weekend!

90s style dance off. 90s music. AWESOME prizes.

vegan food. vegan DJs.

90s pop culture icon named specialty drinks (booze and no-booze)!

There's absolutely a drink called The Carlton.

come with a date, come with friends, come solo!

dress up, dress down, dress grunge, dress to dance!

Chick O'fucking Stick Chocolate Chip Cookies

Embarassingly out of cocoa powder?  Grind up some Chick O Sticks!

My friend Katie Jayne was in town this past weekend for some vegan pub crawl shenanigans.  Since it was her birthday the weekend before, I decided to bake her a little something special.  While I was at Fred Meyer on an errand, I thought "What can I put in her cookies to make them awesome, since she's so awesome"????? 

Walking past the candy aisle, inspiration hit.  Later that night, Ms. Strawberryrock got to stirring, I got to throwing things in the bowl, and Chick O Stick chocolate chip cookies were born.

If you haven't had this candy before (I hadn't before moving to Portland) - think vegan, think the inside of a freaking Butterfinger bar, think coconut, think picking it out of your teeth but it's still worth it, good.  Both Voodoo and Sweetpea feature treats made with this candy - check out glorious Sweetpea layer cake Kt from Sweetpea made for my birthday last year!

The birth process:

Chick O'Fucking Stick Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from the holy Veganomicon, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Romero

2.5-3 cups flour

2/3 cup ground Chick-O-Stick candies (approximately two whole sticks, I ground them in my Magic Bullet)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2/3 cups canola oil

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 teaspoons ground flax seeds

1 spoonful creamy peanut butter

1/2 cup soy milk

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

½ cup to 3/4 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a large bowl sift together flour, baking soda and salt.

In a separate large bowl mix together oil and sugar. Add the flax, peanut butter, soy milk and vanilla and mix well. 

Fold in the dry ingredients in batches. Use a wooden spoon or your mixer to incorporate the ground Chick o Sticks.  Add more flavor if needed.  Add the chocolate chips gently.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and flatten into a disc that's about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet about an inch apart.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for about 5 minutes, then set them on a wire rack to cool completely.  

**In reality we should have added a little more flour - so just add more till the dough looks right, duh.**

The proud mixer

Me and Katie Jayne!

Sure, the cookies have melted down candy in them, but that makes them awesome!

Sweet; Grilling

Sweet.  

Irish Whiskey Creme Kisses.  

Another Post Punk KitchenVegan Cookie Book tester.

The second Vegan Cookie book tester of the day - 

I made both of these to take to a fancy vegan dinner party last weekend.  

It was Indian themed and fabulous.

Espresso Fudge Brownies

Grilling.

I live in an apartment with no immediate place to grill outside, so I contently do all of my grilling in a  cast iron grill pan on the stove top.  I bought it almost 2 years ago for less than $15 at Ross and it's consistently fun to use.  I have a foreman grill stored somewhere but those lines and flavor do not compare. 

Sadly my handy and environmentally wise oil mister died so I've resorted to packaged olive oil spray again lately, but that's a poor excuse and I'm aiming to get a new one soon.  Briefly marinate some tofu or seitan, toss some veggies in oil/herbs/salt or dressing and bam, you have dinner to grill and eat alone, over pasta, grains or in a sandwich.  

On Sunday, I grilled the following for my lunch at work:

Grilled Golden Balsamic and Braggy Tofu, 

Asparagus with olive oil, coarse sea salt and pepper

Grilled Eggplant slices with olive oil and coarse sea salt.

Sandwiched withVegenaise, flavorless tomato that I picked out &  field greens on a french baguette.  Enough for two meals!

more...Sweet.

Nature's Path AgavePlus Granola.  

Their newest addition to the cereal game - with sunflower seeds and oats!  I received two boxes from the company and as Evan from Bjorked Off! knows, I rarely buy or eat cereal - but this stuff is great.  Not too sweet at all.  Personally I'll take agave over honey any day, ethics and flavor-wise.  I thought the sunflower seeds would annoy me, 

because they're just annoying, but they didn't~

blah blah blah cookies

Recent cookie production from my kitchen....

Espresso Oatmeal Chocolate Chip.

Deluxe Cocoa Brownies - 

I swear that a friend of mine impulsively moaned while eating these.  

Isa's New Chocolate Chip Cookies and Mocha Mamas

Nutty Wedding Cookies and their powdered sugar sea.

The recipe for Isa's new Chocolate Chip cookies is available here while the PPK is fancied up. The other cookies are confidential test recipes for the upcoming Vegan Cookies book.  Roasted Almond Cookies with Fluer de Sel are next on my to-test list~

ho

Best Wishes to all during the end of December 2008!  I don't really celebrate anything myself, besides time off from work and the possibility of snow - and Portland had a White Christmas!!

According to the National Weather Service Forecast Office, this was an event - the probability of it happening was less than 0.08%.  End of the world, thanks!  It's now turned to rain and in the 40s again, but I was happy for real, inches of snow while it lasted and extra time away from work.  I really don't hate my job, I just prefer not being there.  Shocker.

Bittersweet chocolate and peanut butter tofu mousse

Food wise, I've been soaking beans, eating Thai, baking cookies and playing with my

new Vita-Mix.  Recently I learned that I could turn my homemade Roasted Garlic and Red Wine Marinara into tomato sauce silk.  I also took 3/4 of a block of silken tofu and blended it with chunks of bittersweet chocolate, almond milk, peanut butter, vanilla and a little bit of sugar to see if it would mousse it up, and it absolutely did.  No need to melt the chocolate beforehand! I let it set in the fridge for a couple hours and then enjoyed this vegan classic.

Chili sin Carne ala Mole - from Vegan with a Vengeance

Using soaked small red beans and black beans, I made this recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance.  I used the last of my locally made Cast Iron Seitan sample and added carrots and yellow bell pepper.  I've never had seitan in chili before and call me a fan.  

This was my Christmas eve dinner above - with a Full Sail Limited Edition Lager Recipe #1 and side of gluten free cornbread.  The only gluten free part of the meal was based on the Veganomicon recipe, using Bob's Red Mill gluten free baking mix for the flour.

Vegan Lunch Special Soup from Pad Thai Kitchen

On Christmas Eve, I ended up meeting a few friends for lunch at Pad Thai Kitchen on SE Belmont.  It's proven to be a reliably vegan friendly Thai restaurant.  

Vegan Pad Thai lunch special, with tofu and vegetables

Citrus Glitters 

From the Isa and Terry Vegan Cookie Book test kitchen - 

here's a slide show of what I've made so far.

Almond Soy Latte from Tiny's in SE Portland.

Snow Serpent from another time...

Another reason to love/hate Portland, OR....

I don't mean to jump the gun, but in a week or so, Portlanders will be able to buy containers of freshly simmered, locally made seitan at Food Fight!  It's called Cast Iron Seitan and the makers are Homeskillet LLC - who just happen to be Isa Chandra Moskowtiz and her awesome husband Justin, who's really doing all the work.  

I was happy to be given a sample and used half of it for yesterday's lunch.

Peanut Noodle Bowl

To keep things appropriately charming and tasty, I decided to grill the seitan over peanut noodles ala Vegan with a Vengeance for yesterdays's pleasantly made-at-home lunch on a leave-early-from-work snow day (and then it stopped snowing, holla).  

Naturally I changed the recipe a bit - I grilled the seitan and red bell pepper instead of sauteeing, omitted the onions, added raw julienned carrot with the cucumber and as for the sauce, I used locally made Thai and True yellow curry paste and a squeeze of fresh lime in place of dried coriander (ew).

I have never gotten my seitan as perfectly textured via simmering, and this stuff is darn wholesome and convenient, and made with something resembling love.

Huxley's a fan.

Maeve from Strawberryrock stopped by and had herself a bowl and a couple cookies.  I rarely cook meals for others these days so there was a little bit of casual excitement.

Mocha Mamas.  

Another test recipe for Terry and Isa's Upcoming Vegan Cookie Book.  

cookies, portabella cheezesteak & snow

Cranberry White Chocolate Biscotti -

 a tester for Terry and Isa's upcoming Vegan Cookie Book - cookie testing is back!  I believe the book is due out in late 2009.

Karla and I volunteered this past weekend as waitresses at the most recent Apron Activists dinner at Sweetpea - Dinner for the Doggies.  We poured 400 glasses of water and brought plates to and fro tables - I had Vegan Addict at one of mine, how a-dor-a-ble!  We were lucky to take home a cookie doggie-bag each after the guests had departed with theirs.  We usually go on a date to these dinners, like we used to at the Red & Black benefits, but our wallets needed a break and we decided to help out as we could.

The cookies: including sparkled ginger, peanut butter, chewy chocolate chocolate walnut and another cranberry white chocolate biscotti.

Philly Portabella Cheezesteak - a test recipe for Urban Vegan's upcoming cookbook! 

Bear with me with for the poor photo, but last week I made another one of 

Isa's Swiss Chard Frittatas.  I had previously made it as a test recipe for Vegan Brunch last winter and posted it here.  I had chard, tofu and wanted to use my oven and there ya go.  I love how easy it is - keep an eye out for this book!

And Portland has snow! Real snow!  It's may not be snowball fight snow, but it has yet to be rained or slushed on, and for that I'm giddy.  Photo by Karla.

More test cookies on my next post!

Snickles and Rolls

Citygirl Snickerdoodles

With my free time this past holiday weekend, I got a chance to jump back into recipe testing for Terry and Isa's Cookie Book.  It's due out next year!  

These are Citygirl Snickerdoodles, a vegan take on the classic.  Don't let the sprinkles fool you, I'm still humbug.

I also made a batch of Poppyseed Pull-Apart Rolls, a tester for Isa's upcoming Vegan Brunch book.  I believe that book is coming late Spring 2009 and is already  up on Amazon for Pre-Order.

To Seattle!

Tomorrow I'm off to Seattle for a few days on business and pleasure with a dear friend.  I'm sure there will be documentation of my obligatory vegan chinese food induglences when I return.  

On my last visit I hit up Vegetarian Bistro and Bamboo Garden, and this time I'm thinking a long-awaited return to Teapot is due, or perhaps a first time visit to In the Bowl or Vegan Garden.  

Let me know if you have suggestions for dishes at any of those three places - Thanks!

Isa's New Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Cookies, Cookies, Cookies.

Since Isa name dropped me all the hell over her last post about the new Vegan Brunch Cookbook, almost to point where it's embarrassing, I thought I'd at least help promote her new chocolate chip cookies as well.   I mean, I've recently been in her house doing whatever she says, showing up with her baked goods and talking her through faux omelet flipping to the point of my faux tears.  

The book is obviously going to be amazing and you should add it to your repertoire, duh.  There's perfect vegan omelets!! There's also going to be Tofu Benedict, Chorizo Sausages, Peruvian Homefries, Tomato Rosemary Scones, Puttanesca Tofu Scramble and a ton, ton, ton more.  The woman whipped up the Puttanesca scramble in a matter of minutes, yet it still  tasted way better than any I've had recently in Portland, besides one she made last month that I tried.  

 

The thing is, these are the perfect cookies.  She's been working to perfect them, and she did.  I almost didn't trust the dough, as it was quite moist when I was popping them in the oven - but as a practiced tester, I tried a couple as is, and 9 minutes later, I had beauties and the hint of hesitation faded.  You'd think Isa and Terry were working on a cookie book or something.....

I'd bought a big bag of tapioca starch on the serious cheap at Fubonn a couple years ago, and I'm happy to opt for it whenever it's an option in a recipe.  The first step of mixing the sugars, tapioca and oil with a fork really does create the dark caramel she describes.  Tapioca flour (aka starch) is cheap and a handy thickener to add to your collection of cornstarch and arrowroot, so pick some up, even if it's just for this recipe because you'll use it in the future.  It's so goopy-fying.

The recipe is posted here.  I added some vegan white chocolate chips.

Bonus Vegan Brunch porn previously posted on Get Sconed!

Tofu Benedict with Hollandaise

Omelet 

Chorizo

Tofu Scramble with Mushrooms by Isa 

(I feel so creepy posting this but you know you want to look)

I'll be sure to have a big Vegan Brunch testing round up post before the book is out, no doubt.

Besties, Cookies & Accidentally Vegan Chips

I came into this month of Vegan Food Writing with the intention of working on and posting recipes, telling stories, maybe explaining the origin of tempeh in Indonesia, writing about my favorite vegan-related places in Portland... and in actuality I've been posting like I always do, just with increased frequency.  I'm obviously comfortable with my conversational style and everyday photo postings, and can only assume a few people reading this are as well.  Maybe.

I have no real problems with that so far, but there will be 6 more Get Sconed! posts this month, and thanks for hopefully staying tuned!

Today, I'd like to again declare my devotion to the the Post Punk Kitchen's Chewy Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I've been making these cookies since my Pre-Portland and forum days, and it's still my go-to cookie.  The recipe is published on the PPK recipe database here, and an updated version was included in Veganomican with less sugar and liquid.  They're the besties.

This past weekend, I made a batch as a vehicle for vegan white chocolate chips to bring to a friend's brunch.  

 Chewy Chocolate Chocolate Chip with White Chocolate Chips!

The white chocolate chips are Oppenheimer brand Kosher chips, and were purchased at Food Fight! - You can buy them online as well.  I had a bag presented to me for my birthday, and have a bag waiting at home for over a month now that I've promised to Erica of littlepretty etsy wonder.  I'm getting on it! 

I'm notoriously slow at mailing, as a certain Broke Ass Vegan knows! <3

You can also buy vegan white chocolate chips from Pangea.  I tried them years ago and like these accidentally vegan Kosher ones more, plus I can walk to Food Fight! from my apartment and not pay shipping...

Kosher Accidentally Vegan White Chocolate Chips

Over the summer, I made these bad boys to bring to the 

PPK Gathering.  

It was only appropriate.

Chewy Chocolate Chocolate Vegan Butterscotch Chip!

In case you missed out on the news, Price Chopper carries accidentally vegan butterscotch chips. They totally taste like little nips of sweet Earth Balance.  That's a good thing.