Vegan White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

I love white chocolate. In my pre-vegan days, it was definitely my favorite type of chocolate. Now, I've developed more of a taste for dark and semi-sweet chocolate, but when I heard about these vegan white chocolate chips on Amazon, you bet your vegan butt I was ordering 'em. And since you have to order them in batches, I am now the happy owner of 3 bags of these suckers. When they arrived, I had to hold back from tearing into a bag to see what they tasted like. But it wasn't long after that I was coming up with a recipe to use them in.

In fact, there are TWO recipes I saw that I knew I wanted to use my new little vegan nuggets of gold in: SMBP's white chocolate truffles, and Happy.Healthy.Life's white chocolate macadamia cookies. Since I made these on a Saturday afternoon when it was just me and the man, I opted to start out with a version of the latter. But, I really don't like nuts in my cookies, so I switched to white chocolate cranberry cookies. Also, since I was fairly horrified by the TWO sticks of butter used in the original recipe, I changed it up to a lower-fat cookie. The result was a moist, cake-like cookie filled with oh-so-sweet chewy cranberries and melty white chocolate chips. 100% vegan deliciousness.

Recipe adapted from Health.Happy.Life
Ingredients:

• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup dried cranberries
• 4 Tbsp Earth Balance or Smart Balance butter
• 1/3 cup cinnamon applesauce
• 1/2 tsp coconut oil (optional)
• 1 large ripe banana
• 1/2 cup maple agave syrup or maple syrup
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 and 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour + 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp baking soda

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Combine sugar, butter, syrup, banana, applesauce, coconut oil, vinegar and extracts in large bowl, mixing with hand mixer until well blended.
3. In separate bowl, mix together the baking soda, flour, and spices. Add the flour mix to the sugar mix, stirring well.
4. Fold in the white chocolate chips & cranberries. 
5. Store in the fridge for ~30 minutes. Place by spoonful on cookie sheets and bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown.

Notes:
As mentioned, this is a somewhat cakey-cookie- that happens when you make cookies lower-fat by substituting with apple sauce. But despite having less than half the fat of the original recipe, this version still comes out delicious- moist light texture, spices, sweetness from the chips, and more sweetness plus a little chewiness from the cranberries. It all comes together to equal yum. As long as you don't have your heart set on a traditional, super buttery, white-chocolate macadamia nut cookie, these cookies should make you pretty happy. In fact, I gobbled up a bunch of these right away... they were just so good fresh out of the oven. And Yes, they are husband- approved; my man loved 'em too.

While we're on the topic of white chocolate, let's talk about these vegan white chocolate chips. I just might have sampled some of the chips on their own before baking them - can you blame me? I mean, it's white chocolate people! Sweet, buttery, creamy, dreamy white chocolate.

Vegan white chocolate chips

Except, to be honest, I was a little disappointed. Truthfully, these vegan chips don't taste just like the real thing on their own. They seemed less creamy, sugary, and buttery. But, don't despair vegans! For one thing, these chips do have slightly less fat, calories, and sugar: 20 grams of the vegan version (a little more than 1/4 cup) contain about 100 calories, 4 grams of fat, and 15 grams of sugar, while the regular version contains twice the fat and sugar (and slightly more calories- about 130). Also, after baking, I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who could tell there was any difference. The sweetness of the rest of the cookie, and the melting, brings out all that white chocolate decadence I was expecting. Phew. White chocolate is saved ;-)