Chocolate Crinkles and Choco Oatmeal Cookies

Up first in this year's Christmas Treat Guide are chocolate crinkles and choco oatmeal cookies!

Oh boy! There's so much to be said about chocolate crinkles. One, they're vegan. Two, they're delicious. Three, they're hella easy to make. Four, they make the perfect chocolate filling to stuff into other cookies to make the cookie of all vegan cookies! I almost didn't want to advertise these cookies as vegan because some non-vegans will turn their noses at the very thought of A COOKIE WITH NO EGGS OR BUTTER???? (I'm looking at you, Dad). But I swear that these cookies just happen to be vegan, it's not like I purposely substituted ingredients to make them vegan. Oh and they're also nut free :)

First things first, ingredients!

- 1¾ cups sugar
- 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
- ½ cup coconut oil, melted
- 2 tsp vanilla
-2¼ cups flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 cup icing sugar (for topping the cookies)

Directions

✿ Combine the first five ingredients (sugar, cocoa, applesauce, oil, and vanilla) together with an electric mixer, or determination and a quick hand.

✿ In a separate bowl, whisk flour with baking powder and salt.

✿ Add the flour mixture to the chocolate mixture in three parts to allow the wet mixture to soak up all the flour.

✿ This step is crucial: Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours. You want the dough to chill up so that it's easier to scoop into cookies. I have even made the dough at night and then baked them the next morning.

✿ Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or a baking mat.

✿ Sift icing sugar into a shallow bowl. Scoop spoonfuls of dough and roll in your hands to make balls. Roll them in the icing sugar to get them nice and coated. This will give them that beautiful crinkled look!

✿ Place on the baking sheets a couple inches a part (you will need two baking sheets cause this recipes make A LOT of cookies) and bake for 10 minutes or until they have a soft brownie-like texture. Cool for a long while before manipulating.

You thought I was done right? Well think again!! Last summer, when I surprised my roommate Sara at her boyfriend Jimmy's (hey Jim, I told you I'd give you a blog shoutout!) cottage, I made a batch of chocolate crinkles to bring and I had SO MUCH dough left over that I had the brilliant idea of using it as a filling in vegan oatmeal cookies! And it worked!! Beautifully might I add :)

So here are the deets for these oatmeal cookies pictured on the left hand side of the above photo.

Ingredients
- 1 cup flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- ¾ cup quick oats
- ½ cup coconut oil (NOT MELTED)
- ¼ cup white sugar
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 1 flax egg (1 Tbsp of ground flax seed mixed with 3 Tbsp water... let sit for five minutes)
- ¾ cups shredded coconut

Directions

✿ Preheat the oven at 350ºF
✿ In a bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, salt, and oats. Set aside.

✿ In another bowl, cream the sugars and the coconut oil, then add the flax egg and vanilla.

✿ Add in the flour mixture and once combined, add in the coconut.

✿ Let the dough chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes, then when it has chilled create a sort of patty with the oatmeal dough and then place a ball of the chocolate crinkle dough in the centre of said patty. In the palm of your hand roll the two cookies into one. Place on a lined baking sheet.

✿ Bake for 13-15 minutes.

Enjoy!

In other news, I hope every single one of you has listened to the first episode of Serial Season 2!!! When I was studying in France, a bunch of my friends would pile into one of our tiny (I mean TINY) residence rooms and drink tea and not move an inch or blink an eye as we listened ever so intently to what Sarah Koenig found out that week about Adnan Syed, a high school student in Baltimore that she suspected to have been wrongly convicted of murder fifteen years ago. The podcast EXPLODED and soon everybody and their brother was listening in! So flash forward a year, my friends and I are no longer cuddled up listening to a podcast on a crisp fall day in France, but thanks to good ol' Facebook the tradition continues, as we are all weighing in on the new season that is exploring Bowe Bergdahl's case.... I'm so excited I can hardly wait for the next episode this Thursday.

(Picture of girls listening to radio from Tumblr)