Dining With Friends for the Holidays? Bring a Classic: Thumbprint Cookies.

By Dustin Garrett Rhodes

Each Friday through the holidays, Friends of Animals will share an all-vegan recipe or two to help make your holiday season taste better. Or, maybe we’ll help inspire some new ideas. In any case, all the recipes appear in Priscilla Feral’s and Lee Hall’s cookbook, Dining With Friends: The Art of North American Vegan Cuisine.

The cookbook is available for purchase at the Friends of Animals website (www.friendsofanimals.org) and from www.amazon.com. Best of all, proceeds go towards helping Friends of Animals end animal exploitation. Priscilla Feral’s new cookbook, The Best of Vegan Cooking, will be available soon for pre-order, and available for purchase in January 2009.

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Here’s an artfully simple, surprisingly delicious recipe for vegan cookie dough—which can be used to bake last-minute gifts or just because you want some delicious cookies to snack on. I suggest sharing the wealth, as this recipe yields 16 dozen cookies!

If you decide to just make one batch of cookies, freeze the unused half of the dough for a future time.

Vegan Cookie Dough

Makes 16 dozen

1 pound vegan margarine, softened slightly
1 ½ cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Ener-G Egg Replacer (mix according to instructions on box—equivalent to 3 eggs)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 ¾ cups unbleached flour

Preparation:

Use a heavy duty electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.

In a large bowl, cream together the margarine, sugar and salt. Add the egg replacer and vanilla, and beat until smooth. Add the flour gradually, beating on low speed until thoroughly mixed.

Thumbprint Cookies

Makes about 5 dozen
½ vegan cookie dough recipe
Vegan chocolate chips
¾ cup strawberry or raspberry jam

Preparation:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Roll the dough into 1 inch balls, and arrange them 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheets. Using your finger, indent the center of each ball of dough. Drop a chocolate chip in the center and fill with about ¼ teaspoon of jam.

Bake the cookies 14-16 minutes, or until the edge are pale golden. Let the cookies cool on the sheets for two minutes before transferring them to wire racks to cool completely.