I’ve made quite a few batches of chocolate chip cookies in my day.  When I was little, Santa told me that chocolate chip was his favorite kind of cookie.  After that, I always had to make sure we made some for Christmas.  I keep trying for that kind of chewy, moist bakery or college dining hall chocolate chip cookie but with a more complex flavor that isn’t sickeningly sweet.   I want to use minimally processed ingredients like whole wheat pastry flour and maple syrup crystals.  I’ve tried many tricks, including ground oatmeal, freezing the dough, rolling the dough into balls and tearing it apart so it has that “rustic” look.  But I haven’t landed on a recipe that turns out consistently good.  Here’s my latest attempt.  It is based on a recipe that substitutes sour cream for eggs.  I also cut up an 85% cacao chocolate bar and then topped off the cup of chopped chocolate with cacao nibs.  Since it’s not the recipe I’m looking for, I’ll just say that I substituted hemp ricotta for eggs and left it at that.  I also had to increase the flour.

They turned out too cakey and dry for my taste.  In all my experimenting with vegan chocolate chip cookies, I’ve found that sometimes they just taste best raw.  So I made two trays and rolled the rest of the dough into teaspoon-sized balls and froze them.