Hella Vanilla Chocolate Chip Cookies

When I was a kid, Christmas was my favorite time of year. Every Christmas eve, I would diligently lay out not only the obligatory milk and cookies for Mr. Claus, but an array of baby carrots and cherry tomatoes that I had stolen from the vegetable plate for his nine reindeer. Now that I'm older, that most coveted of jobs has been passed down to my younger step sisters, and I instead turn to the quest of creating the perfect vegan chocolate chip cookie.

Now, I'm not going to claim to have made the perfect chocolate chip cookies, because I know that depending on what your tastes are, the perfect cookie could be anything. So, while this may not be THE chocolate chip cookie, I'm going to go ahead and say that this is it for me. It's packed with chocolate, with a hint of saltiness to balance it out and steer it away from being cloying. They're soft right out of the oven, but firm up enough to keep them from crumbling to bits when you eat them. Go ahead and eat five or six. I won't tell.



Ingredients
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup earth balance
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar (or vanilla sugar if you have it)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 vanilla bean
1/4 cup plain unsweetened soy yogurt
2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 300, and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Combine the salt and two flours and set aside. Cream the butter and sugars with a fork, then scrape the contents of your vanilla bean, vanilla extract, and soy yogurt into the butter/sugar, and mix until incorporated (save the leathery outside of the vanilla bean to make your own vanilla sugar!). Mix in the flour and chocolate chips. Roll the dough into ping-pong sized balls and bake for 18-20 minutes. Allow to cool on cookie sheet.

This dough can also be rolled and frozen to cut later!