I have been an absolute junkie for chocolate chip cookies (or biscuits for our dear Limey relations) ever since I was a small child. As an adult, I have rarely gone for any significant period of time without making and/or eating them. Almost all commercial brands (Chips Ahoy!, etc.) are utter garbage in my view and virtually inedible, and since I became vegan they are quite literally inedible as they contain milk, if not in the batter itself then certainly in the milk chocolate that is so ubiquitous. I've made hundreds of batches of regular chocolate chip cookies with eggs and butter, but I had to come up with my own recipe when I switched to a plant-based diet. The ingredients have changed over the years as plant-based substitutes for eggs have surpassed the standard starch-based powered egg replacer or flax seeds.
The recipe below is my current daily driver. I bake a batch of these on a weekly basis and have for years, and as such I'm transcribing it entirely from memory. Probably one of the most important things to ensure success when baking these is to soften the margarine to room temperature before you begin. This is one of the determiners between cookies that are brittle and crumbly and go stale quickly, and cookies that are moist and chewy and stay that way for days when properly sealed in an airtight jar. The other factor is moisture content in the batter, but that's somewhat less critical.
I make these with a planetary stand mixer, a KitchenAid model K45 manufactured by the Hobart Corporation in 1976. Let me digress here for a moment to say that modren KitchenAid mixers are made in assorted Asian countries and with regular use their motors are almost guaranteed to burn out with in a year. Oh, you paid $300 for it? Too bad, throw it away and go buy another $300 one that will also burn out within a year. Or maybe think about looking on Craigslist for an old one. Mine is nearly fifty years old and still running like the day it was made. The old KitchenAid mixers earned their reputation because Hobart's main business was commercial food service equipment (and still is), and they designed and built all their products to last forever. My mixer will still be running long after I'm cold and in the grave, and I paid about $100 for it. I actually have two of them, in different colors.
Anyway, where was I? Oh right, cookies. Tem42 is right about it being difficult to find vegan chocolate chips. The international dairy cartel has somehow cajoled, bribed, or extorted manufacturers into putting milk or components of milk into almost every mass-produced thing you eat, including medications. Milk is an allergen and makes some people, like my wife, physically ill. Must it be added to everything? Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips used to be vegan, but for reasons that the manufacturer could not explain to me when I called them up and asked them, they quietly started adding milk to them about ten years ago. No warning or even a "Now IMPROVED with MILK!" label, no change in packaging whatsoever, they just threw "milk" into the ingredients list in the small print and figured that would be fine. An old bag without milk and a new bag with milk are visually identical, other than the ingredients list. I fumed about this for a long time, but I eventually found another brand of chocolate chips that don't contain milk: Enjoy Life is available at Whole Foods Market and other places, and is free of fourteen different allergens, including dairy and casein. Sadly, the chocolate isn't the same quality as Ghirardelli, but beggars can't be choosers. Last I checked, Guittard semi-sweet chocolate chips contained milk or were manufactured in a facility that spills milk everywhere so they can't assure anyone as to whether their product contains it or not. C-Dawg tells me the red label Kirkland brand contains milk, and the blue label mysteriously has no ingredients listing. Kinda sus, methinks.
Enough with the drama already, let's make some chockie bickies.
Ingredients
1 stick (4 oz.) Earth Balance vegan buttery sticks (margarine), softened but not melted
1¼ cups brown sugar (may use raw sugar or coconut sugar)
3 tbsp. Just Egg egg substitute
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract (please don't use artificial vanilla flavoring, have some self respect)
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. corn starch
½ tsp. salt
1 bag (10 oz.) Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips, or other vegan brand
Method
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit/180 degrees Celsius/Gas 4 if your oven is European and from the last century. Wash your hands.
Attach the flat beater to your stand mixer, leaving it raised. Add the softened Earth Balance and brown sugar, then lower the beater and turn on to the slowest setting. Add Just Egg and vanilla extract and let it mix until all ingredients are well combined. Stop mixer and lift the beater. Add the dry ingredients except for the chips. Lower the beater and turn back on lowest speed. Mix well until dough consistency is reached. Add chocolate chips, mixing for another 15-20 seconds. Stop mixer, lift beater, remove bowl. Wash your hands.
I use 22" x 16" baking sheets with silicone baking mats, but if you don't have those you can use whatever size sheets you've got with greaseproof parchment paper, or maybe you've got some non-stick baking sheets. Whatever. Are your hands clean? Use a regular teaspoon or dessert spoon to remove a dollop of dough about 1½" in diameter from the mixing bowl, and place it on the mat/paper/sheet. On big sheets like I use, there's room for 35 cookies (five by seven). If you size your dollops correctly, the dough will be enough to make two full sheets, or 70 cookies. To keep the dough from sticking to the fingers of your hand that isn't holding the spoon, I recommend filling a teacup or coffee mug half full of warm water and dipping your fingers in it periodically as you're placing the dollops of batter. When you're done, wash your hands.
Bake each sheet for ten minutes. Remove from oven when done and allow to cool at least ten minutes before releasing the cookie monster. Store in air-tight container after 30-45 minutes, but before completely cool to preserve moisture content.