The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur: Over 140 Simply Delicious Recipes That Treat the Eyes and Taste Buds

by Kelly Peloza

Kelly Peloza started experimenting with vegan baking as a high school student, blogging about her vegan adventures all the while. Her amazing recipes and gorgeous photos drew a crowd of eager readers who have been begging her for a cookbook ever since. Now an energetic, spunky college student, her book is fi- nally ready for her anxious audience. From double peanut butter sandwich cookies and coconut caramel butter cookies to raspberry almond cookies and inside out peppermint patties, these delicious and imaginative recipes are sure to inspire bakers of all ages.

Peloza is committed to using ingredients that are easy to find, natural, and simple to use. You won’t find egg replacer, expensive cooking oils, or hydrogenated margarine in her recipes. “Making a batch of chocolate chip cookies shouldn’t involve running to five different health food stores searching for some elusive ingredient,” she writes. But you will find helpful tips for things like substituting margarine for oil in recipes, experimenting with non-dairy milks, using whole wheat flour, and ensuring the sugar you use was not processed with animal bone char. The result is a simple, thorough, and inspiring collection of mouthwatering cookies anyone can make and everyone will love.

Genres: Cookbooks, Vegan, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2010

About the author

Kelly Peloza is a cookbook author, professional photographer, and blogger residing in Chicago. She became vegan in high school and started experimenting in the kitchen. She completed her first book, The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur, in high school. Her second book, Cheers to Vegan Sweets, was released in 2013, and a second edition of The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur was released in 2016.

Kelly blogs at Seitan Beats Your Meat.

Contact at: kelly@kellypeloza.com

Reviews

[PorshaJo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't believe I never rated this book. This is one of my favorite cookbooks I own. I use this frequently for the recipes are they are wonderful. I have made more than half of the recipes in this book and have liked each one. Some have become family standbys that we make all the time. I love the chocolate chip cookie section that has so many variations. If you are looking for a great vegan cookie book, this is the perfect choice.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best vegan cookbooks of 2010. The recipes are inventive -- not just variations on a theme -- and the photos are breathtaking. This is the kind of cookbook that makes you want to get into the kitchen, pronto!

Here are my thoughts on the first 4 recipes I tried --

Vanilla Thumbprint Cookies: I made these with Barb's Christmas jam and they were delightful. Yum!

Chocolate Sugar Cookies: These were a little more time intensive than many of the other recipes in the book, since they required heating soymilk and corn starch on the stove top, allowing it to cool, incorporating it in the dough, and chilling the dough before rolling it out. The batter was so thick I could not use my electric hand mixer, and I don't think chilling the dough was absolutely necessary since it was too stiff to roll out without warming for a few minutes. All that said, once the dough was done, it was very easy to work with and the cookies were lovely. I iced them with a recipe from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar (there's only a buttercream recipe in this book) and topped them with sprinkles, chocolate chips, and dried cranberries.

Candy Cane Chocolate Chip Cookies: I typically make cookie recipes that call for margarine, so I was intrigued that this recipe used canola oil instead. The result was a somewhat paler cookie, but with flecks of candy canes, the result was festive. The aroma while they were baking embodied Christmas -- and they tasted delish!

Cranberry Almond Cookies: Yum! These reminded Jeff of biscotti. I love anything with either almonds or cranberries, so these sent me over the moon.

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delectable, sumptuous photos! They’re some of the most mouthwatering (and dangerous!) I’ve seen in any cookbook. Every recipe has its own photo and they’re placed on the same pages as the recipes. I appreciate that. The whole book has a beautiful layout. I liked the different hued pages too. The trouble is, the recipes are way too tempting; hence my recommended to audience. I was enticed by nearly every single photo.

The cookie recipes are incredibly inventive and fun, and most look delicious to me. There are fortune cookies and dog treats and so much variety in types of cookies included.

Every recipe is accompanied by a note, and there are entire page notes with all sorts of tips. I like that this author has a couple blogs and this book, but she also shares other places to get cookies: others’ recipes and those purchased already made. One page is devoted to how to successfully mail cookies to give as gifts, a wonderful inclusion.

The ingredients needed to make these recipes are easy to find and the recipes look doable, and this from someone who hasn’t sifted flour for decades.

Some of the cookies have very unusual flavors, some are familiar old standards; there is a huge variety, and variations are given for some of the recipes.

My biggest disappointment is that the graham crackers don’t call for any graham flour, which is what gives graham crackers their distinctive flavor, in my opinion. (I had the same gripe with the graham cracker recipe in Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar: 100 Dairy-Free Recipes for Everyone's Favorite Treats. So, what is going on re that?!?!) ½ star off for that. 4 ½ stars.

I appreciated the healthier cookie section that gives information for those wanting cookies that use whole grain flour, or are lower fat, or lower in sugar, or allergy or gluten free, and one gluten free recipe is included.

I’m impressed that Peloza started writing this book while she was in high school! And this book is a huge accomplishment for her and a gift to the vegan cookbook genre. And, it may sound strange to say for a cookbook that doesn’t have a lot of text, but the author is a fine writer as well as cookie baker.

I know the Peanut Butter Dog Treats will be a hit with all the dogs I know, and they look healthy too. So, I most want to make those. The Fortune Cookies would be so fun to make, with fortunes of course, because I’ve only once seen commercial fortune cookies that don’t contain cow’s milk and/or egg, and have never been to a restaurant that has vegan fortune cookies. Even though any recipes can be altered, I appreciated the inclusion of the Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies. The other cookies I most want to bake/eat are the Orange Chocolate Chunk Cookies, Bakery-Style Crispy Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies (with a hint of maple), Kelly’s Chocolate Chip Cookies, Soft Baked Chocolate Chip Cookies, Garrick’s Chocolate chip Cookies, the Pink Lemonade Cookies, the Chocolate Peppermint Wafer Cookies, and the Autumn Clouds Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. Also amazing looking: Chocolate Peppermint Cream Bars, Chocolate Jam Thumbprints, Cashew Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, Peanut Kiss Cookies, Almond Cloud Cookies, Pixies, Orange Vanilla Dream Bars, Soft Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, Soymilk’s Favorite Cookies, Candy Cane Chocolate Chip Cookies, Oatmeal Scotchies, English Toffee Squares, Adorable Bleeding Heart Sandwich Cookies, Inside Out Peppermint Patties, Vanilla Sandwich Cookies, Iced Caramel Cookies, Ginger Snaps, Four-Way Chewy Ginger Cookies, Cinnamon Roll Cookies, Espresso Chocolate Chip Shortbread, and Soft and Delicious Oatmeal Cookies. I also thought it was a fun touch to include information on how to Make Your Own Sprinkles Kit, a butter cream (various flavors possible) frosting recipes, and a recipe for marzipan.

Contents:

Ackknowledgments
Introduction
1. How to Be a Cookie Connoisseur
2. Cookies Inspired by Drinks
3. Totally Nuts and Seeds!
4. Blissfully Chocolate Cookies
5. No Bakes
6. DIY Versions of Mass-Produced Cookies
7. Fruity Cookies
8. Bar Cookies
9. A Take on Tradition
10. Helathier Cookies and Baking for Specific Needs
11. Nostalgia: Everyone’s Favorite Cookies
12. Cookies You Would Find at a Tea Party
13. Decorating Ideas and Recipes for Homemade Cookie Fixin’s
Index
Conversion Chart

My Goodreads’ friend Chrissie recently asked me if reading all these vegan cookbooks weren’t making me hungry. Well, this one, even though I was careful to read it at times when I wasn’t physically hungry, almost did me in. It’s a wonderful cookbook and I can, without reservations, recommend it to all vegans who eat cookies and it’s also 100% gift worthy for any occasion.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not that into cookies so I don't use this cookbook much, but the recipes I've made so far have been delicious - the Chewy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies and the Cappuccino cookies. I like how she is clear about what the differences are between similar cookies (I picked this up when another cookbook that I have had at least 3 different peanut butter cookies with no explanation as to the difference in texture or taste between them). The Cappuccino Cookies are delicious, but the texture is different from what Peloza said - they are supposed to be thin and spread much while cooking, but they didn't spread at all and the dough was rather heavy (even with the extra splashes of soymilk she said to add if it was too dry). I actually prefer the texture they turned out to have, but I'm confused about why it was so different - I would think it was a measuring difference, but the flour measuring method she describes in the book would result in her using more flour than I did, not less.

[Kaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This recipe book completely overwhelmed me - in a good way! Just soooooo many delicious bickie recipes, all with their own photo.
My favourites: the super-cute turtle cookies, almond cloud kisses and chocolate chip cookie cake.
Let me assure you, vegans do not miss out on tasty treats. Cookie, cookie, cookie... yes, I seem to be morphing into Cookie Monster.
Sing it with me: C is for cookie....

[Allie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty ok cookbook. Some of the recipes are good, but others seem like they could have been tested a few more times. There are many more vegan dessert cookbooks (like Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar), and compared to those this book is pretty unremarkable.

[Another · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a real winner!. I've made 4 or 5 different recipes, they were all fantastic. Definitely worth buying! There is also a pretty good section on substituting ingredients from animal product using recipes. She focuses heavily on egg substitutes, which is great!. Really love this book. I wish I could give it more than 5 stars.

[Rhianna Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not vegan, but I love a vegan. I love making vegan cookies and feeling okay about letting my kids eat raw dough. I also love that most of the ingredients I can find in my kitchen without making a trip to the health food store. No egg substitute or tofu here. Kelly thinks that fake stuff is cheating, and I love her for it.

[mad mags]

I haven't yet gotten around to reviewing this cookbook - but you can see some of the dishes I've made from The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur here: http://www.easyvegan.info/tag/the-veg...

[Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I tried three different recipes from this book and they were all freaking amazing. I am afraid to buy it, because it would probably result in me gaining 25lbs and eating baked goods all of the time. Nonetheless, this is right up there with Isa's dessert books.

[Carina Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the recipes. It seems easy for anybody to follow. Loved that she included cookies from other countries as well..can't wait to try them out.

[Fletcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the cookies based on drinks chapter. Great photos!