Chocolate-Covered Animal Cookies.

Vegan Animal Crackers/Cookies. I spotted a giant tub of *vegan* animal cookies at Trader Joe’s – so I had to grab them. These cute little cookies were what inspired me to make this recipe.

I loved those pink and white creamy bite frosted animal cookies as a kid. I liked the white ones better than the pink ones. But alas, these frosted animal crackers are not vegan. And since I knew my husband would go gaga for dark chocolate animal cookies – that’s what I did.

Chocolate. I wanted a super bold, not too sweet coating for my cookies. So I grabbed some easy melt baking circles from TJ’s as well. They are pretty much 100% cocoa mass. However, after taste-testing the cookies I thought they were a tad too bold. So I did another round with basic vegan chocolate chips. I liked these better, but the chocolate was a bit thicker to work with. Funny enough, my dark chocolate loving husband loved the straight up baking chocolate cookies. The darker the better I guess. The cookies do have a subtle sweetness which enhances the bold chocolate.

Sprinkles. Vegan sprinkles are out there. True, most mainstream baking sprinkles are made from vegan ingredients (sugar, chemicals, artificial stuff etc) – the only thing you may be skeptical of is the food dye sources – which you can’t really confirm from a package sometimes. To be safe, go with the vegan-certified sprinkles available at Whole Foods or online. I had some basic sprinkles in my pantry – so I used those. But I made half my batch “non-sprinkled” for me since I’m not a fan of non-vegan food coloring. I use my India Tree and plant-based sources every chance I get.

OK, enough of the technical stuff. Here’s the fun part..

Easy Awesome Chocolate-Covered Animal Cookies
vegan, makes 2 cups of cookies

1 3/4 cups vegan animal cookies
medium bowl of melted chocolate – about 2/3 cup – (baking, dark, semisweet all optional)
round sprinkles – or your fave variety

parchment paper-lined baking sheets (so the sprinkles don’t roll onto the floor!)

Directions:

1. In a double broiler, start melting your chocolate via steam. Do not burn it.

2. Line a few baking sheets with parchment paper.

3. About 3 cookies at a time – drop them into the melted chocolate and remove with a fork. Place the coated cookies directly on the parchment paper. Then grab your sprinkles and dash a few on top of the still-soft chocolate coating.

4. Repeat with all your cookies.

5. Place your cookies in the fridge or freezer to harden. I like to store mine in the freezer – they keep longer that way – and it’s easy to grab a few for a treat.

Enjoy!!