Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

As a non-vegan who eats, cooks, and bakes with animal products daily, I don't think about vegan baking in the slightest. However, I have experimented in special diets and vegan baking a few times at the request of clients. When the opportunity pops up, I take it as a challenge to devise a recipe that tastes delicious and as close to "the real thing" as possible (apologies for any offense here). When I bake up these recipes, one thing is important to me—I don't want to use any "substitute" ingredients, such as egg replacers, xantham gum, and the like. This is mostly because I just don't stock the stuff and I want to use whatever I have in house.

Years ago, an order for vegan chocolate chip cookies came in at my bakery. As I searched for recipes, I came across a popular one called "unbeatable oatmeal chocolate chip cookies." I glanced it over, eliminated the oddball ingredients such as the egg replacer and soy milk, made a few tweaks, and whipped up a batch. Even without the egg replacer as a binder, they were truly great. Admittedly more delicate than an egg-bound cookie, the cookies were still great thanks to the oats and coconut which impart a decent chew. They were so good, in fact, that I'd bake up a batch to sell in the pastry window whenever I had the chance. I wouldn't even say they were vegan, and no one ever knew.