Cookies are a girls best friend, if you ask me. It never asks questions, its warm and comfy and it makes an excellent coffee dipper.

I try to make cookies every other day to fill the cookies jar as soon as it is empty. To tell you the truth, the cookie jar at home never stays full for long.

Somewhere in the house there is a cookie monster that just loves that cookie jar especially around midnight when everyone in the household is asleep

Of course when you have a vegan eater in the form of my mother and my father fasting twice a week, it seems pointless to make cookies that have eggs in them. I mean there are just so much cookies one girl can eat before getting sick of cookies.

That is why I went out and bought a book that consists of over 365 cookie recipes. I can literally make a different cookie every day for a year.

I came across this recipe a number of times, but because it contained coffee essence, I just skipped over. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get your hands of coffee essence in my town? I thought it would be easy, but apparently I was wrong, they seem to have every essence under the sun, except coffee. There is strawberry essence, orange essence, lemon essence, peppermint essence, vanilla essence, just not coffee. The last time I bought coffee essence, I had to buy it online and again this time.

When the essence, finally arrived I decided to make these cookies and wow what a hit they were, especially the vegan royal icing that I managed to get right the first time. That drizzled over the top, changed the entire cookie.

Ingredients for the batter:

• ½ x cup oil.
• 2/3 x cup castor sugar.
• ¼ x cup almond milk.
• 1 x tbsp. ground flax seeds.
• 2 x tsp corn starch.
• 1 x tsp vanilla essence.
• 2 ½ x tsp coffee essence.
• 1 ½ x cake flour, sifted.
• ½ x cocoa powder, sifted.
• ½ x tsp bicarbonate of soda.
• ¼ x tsp salt.

Method for the batter:

• In a bowl, whisk together the oil, sugar, milk, flax seeds and corn starch till the mixture is nice and smooth and thick.
• Add in the vanilla essence and coffee essence and whisk.
• Add the remaining ingredients and mix till the dough comes together.
• Break off pieces and shape into balls.
• Using the bottom of a glass cup, gently press down to flatten the cookies.
• Pop into a preheated oven and bake at 180 degrees for 15 – 20 minutes or until the bottoms are starting to brown slightly.
• Allow the cookies to cool completely on a cooling rack before icing.

Ingredients for the drizzle:

• 1 x cup icing sugar.
• 2 x tbsp. almon milk.
• ½ x tsp coffee essence.
• ¼ x tsp vanilla essence.

Method for the drizzle:

• Whisk all the ingredients together in a bowl and drizzle over the tops of the cookies.
• Pop into the fridge to allow the icing to set for about 5 minutes.