I have created monsters in the form of my parents. I have spoilt them so much that at every afternoon they demand that something be served with tea.

Most days, I make something, or have something in the freezer to pop into the oven. I wish I was lucky like most people, that could just pop into the stores and buy a milktart. Nope, that doesn’t happen in our house.

Everything is eggless and my mother doesn’t trust stores that sell both egg cakes and eggless cakes. So I just bake eggless treats at home, that we all can enjoy.

To tell you the truth, I haven’t used an egg in my baking in almost 5 years. And I don’t even notice the difference anymore. If I had to follow a recipe without substituting the egg for a vegan egg, I would have no idea what to do with the egg.

Vegan or eggless baking is soo much more fun and easier. When adding a vegan egg to a hot mixture, you do not have to temper the mixture to prevent getting scrambled eggs. When whisking, you don’t have to whisk between each egg to prevent the egg from splitting and curdling. Vegan eggs go in all at the same time and get whisked without any curdling or splitting.

Back to how this recipe came about.

I was lazy to make anything for tea time the other day. I mean it was the first time this year that my sink was clean and there wasn’t a single dish on the drying rack. Now tell me, why would I want to dirty it all up??? Of course my parents were not having any of it and they kept hinting that tea just isn’t tea without a sweet thing. My parents didn’t want poli, they wanted something different.

I needed to make something that only required a stick of butter, since that was the only butter that was at room temperature. And also I needed something that would dirty up the least amount of dishes.

And I found it in the Minimalist baker, Everyday cooking, cookbook.

This recipe ticked all the boxes, one bowl and it only required 1 stick of room temperature butter and it would allow me to use the dark bitter chocolate chips pieces that were aging in the cupboard.

I loved this, my mother loved them, because she loves hard cookies and my dad well he was just happy to have something to dunk in his tea.

The bitter chocolate was perfect, as it didn’t make this cookie overly sweet.

Ingredients:

• 1 x stick butter, room temperature.
• ¼ x cup castor sugar.
• ½ x cup light brown sugar.
• 1 x tsp vanilla essence.
• 3 x tbsp. applesauce.
• 1 ½ x cups + 2 x tbsp. cake flour, sifted.
• 1 ½ x tsp corn starch.
• 1 x tsp baking powder.
• ½ x tsp bicarbonate of soda.
• ¼ x tsp salt.
• ½ x cup chocolate chips.

Method:

• In a large bowl, cream together the sugars and butter, till well combined.
• Mix in the vanilla essence.
• Add in the applesauce and mix.
• Add in the cake flour, corn starch, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt and mix tell all the dry ingredients are well combined.
• Fold in the chocolate chip pieces.
• Using a mechanical ice cream scoop.
• Scoop out spoonful of the mixture and using your hands shape into a ball.
• Place on a greased baking tray and using the bottom of a glass, flatten the ball slightly.
• Pop into a preheated oven and bake at 180 degrees for 15 – 20 minutes or until the bottoms are golden brown.
• Allow to cool for 5 minutes on the baking tray before placing on a cooling rack and allowing to cool completely.