Last night . . . a dinner party

And we were in charge of bringing the vegan dessert. I wanted to use the opportunity of this party to make a variety of cookies, and I ended up making four different types of cookies. While this took a bit of time, I think the effort was worth it. Check them out!

We left a ton with Michael and Lauren and were still able to bring a bunch home.
MMMMMM cookies! Here are the details...

Cookie 1: Maple Flax Sesame Cookies
This recipe comes from Jae over at domesticaffair, and these were simple and incredible. I used the same proportions, I made the wavy impression with my fingers, and I added some sesame seeds to the top cause I thought that would be nice, and these went over very very well. Maple is one of my favorite flavors, and I loved the crunch of the flax and sesame.

Cookie 2: Peanut Butter Cookies
My sister met Beth A. Barnett (also known as Beth Bee) at a book or zine or craft show (I forget) a few years ago, and she ordered this homemade cookbook, Rabbit Food, and had it sent to me.

It’s an adorable and completely user-friendly book with great recipes of all kinds. I followed the ingredients except I used half of the sugar (when I made these for myself once before, I used even less sugar and used applesauce instead of margarine). I made the fancy cross hatches with a fork that the book suggested, and then I added a plump chocolate chip to the middle of each cookie. These were very crumbly as opposed to chewy (the result I got last time), but people seemed to really like them that way. And these were super-sweet, so cutting the sugar was definitely the right way to go.

Cookie 3: Green Tea Cookies

This recipe is from Megan, lover of all things green tea. I substituted brown rice flour in place of the white flour and 1/3 cup agave nectar + 1/3 maple syrup for the 2/3 of maple syrup called for in the recipe. Right before I made these, I called her to ask if she thought I should add any nuts, and she didn’t think so, and I’m glad that I followed her advice. I formed them into balls and flattened them with my fingers rather than rolling them out and using cookie cutters. The results were really powerful, delightfully fragrant, sophisticated, and subtle at the same time. I had never had anything like these before, and the beautiful green color wowed everyone.

Cookie 4: Brownie Cookies

This recipe came from The Garden of Vegan, where I get my old standby dessert, Death by Chocolate Pie, but I had decided that none of my desserts would have tofu in them so that we could avoid the “You can taste the tofu” or “I can’t believe it’s tofu” conversation which, while sometimes fun, can detract from the experience of just eating good dessert. I followed the recipe, though I substituted pine nuts for walnuts (I was itching to use the pinenuts, though they didn't really belong in this cookie) but after I mixed the ingredients, I found the mix to be extremely soupy, and there was no way I was going to be able to form them into cookies. I then went into my default dessert-baking mode where I just start throwing flour, chips, cocoa, nuts, whatever into the bowl with abandon, mixing and mixing till I got some kind of cookie consistency. I spooned them onto the sheet (I couldn’t roll them in my hand cause they were still way too sticky) and baked them for the full time. They certainly taste good, but when you look at them, you think they’re going to be super fudgy though they're not. We have the most leftover of those, though I actually think they taste better today.