These Mint-Chocolate Oat Cake Cookies are fluffy and soft and filled with refreshing mint-chocolate flavor in each tender bite. Fluffy oats and silky coconut oil. This is a family recipe that was always made using "mint milk chocolate chips." But I recently realized that I could achieve the same flavor using vegan semi-sweet chips and some simple organic peppermint extract...
Cookie Craving? Check out my 7 Secrets to Cookie Baking Success post.
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My great Aunt Bea would make these buttery, rich, uber-amazing mint chocolate oatmeal cookies for my sister and I as kids. They were super rich and quite addicting. Those silky mint milk chocolate chips melting between the nutty oats and buttery flour and sugar filled cookies. I remember we used to giggle to ourselves and say that since the cookies had oats in them, they were extremely good for us. Instead of oatmeal for breakfast, it seemed perfectly reasonable to swipe a few chocolate-studded cookies from the platter on the kitchen counter.
..Perhaps not breakfast worthy, but those oats do add a bit of fiber, nutty flavor, whole grain goodness and oat nutrients like phosphorus, manganese, iron, magnesium and thiamin. Tip! For even more whole oats in each bite, swap out the white flour for homemade oat flour, the cookies will be more nutty and textured, but still delicious. Oat flour directions in this post. Flour-free cookies example here.
Well, I can never find vegan mint chocolate chips (I usually just use broken up vegan mint dark chocolate bars), so I rarely make these cookies. But last night I decided to see if tossing my semi-sweet chips in a few drops of organic peppermint extract would do the trick. And I was pleasantly surprised with the results. Mint chocolate, cool and creamy, in each fluffy oatmeal cookie bite.
Cake Cookies. I made these cookies a bit on the fluffy side by using more flour and baking powder than you might normally see in a cookie recipe like this. The cookies sprawl and puff up on the pan and turn out to be muffin top-ish sort of abstract cookies. Delicate and moist. Not very chewy, these cookies are more cake-like in texture.
Enjoy!..
Mint Chocolate Chip Oat Cake Cookies
vegan, makes 10-12 cookies
dry:
¾ cups white flour, organic/unbleached (you can try GF flour too)
¼ cup spelt flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ tablespoon ground chia or flax seeds (I used white chia seeds)
⅓ cup rolled oats
1 heaping tablespoon baking powder
wet/warm:
½ cup + 2 teaspoon organic sugar
2 ½ tablespoon almond or soy milk
⅓ cup virgin coconut oil
2 tablespoon vegan buttery spread (Earth Balance) (or sub more coconut oil + additional pinch of salt)
Fold-in:
⅓ teaspoon apple cider vinegar
½ cup semi-sweet (vegan dark) chocolate chips
⅛ teaspoon peppermint extract, natural/organic
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, grease a baking sheet.
2. Toss the peppermint extract with the chocolate chips in a small bowl. Place the bowl in the freezer. (This step may seem odd, but when you add the chips to the dough slightly cold in temperature, it chills and firms the dough on contact so that you can scoop the soft dough into cookies asap as opposed to placing the dough in the fridge to firm up.)
3. Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
4. Combine the wet ingredients in a small bowl and microwave for 15-30 seconds or until they have warmed and the vegan butter and oil softened.
5. Add the wet to the dry and fold well until the mixture is wet and sticky - thickened up a bit but not as thick and dry and normal cookie batter.
6. Fold the apple cider vinegar into the dough.
7. Last, fold the chilled chips into the dough. This should help firm it up a bit. The dough will still be quite soft but thick enough to scoop into loosely formed piles on your baking sheet.
8. Place baking sheet in oven. Bake cookies at 375 for 12-15 minutes - I usually wait until the edges begin to brown a bit. They will firm up a bit as they cool.
