Chocolate

Vegan Oatmeal Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Flaky Sea Salt

by:
January 31, 2018
5
2 Ratings
Vegan Oatmeal Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Flaky Sea Salt
Photo by Julia Gartland
  • Makes 26-28 cookies
Author Notes

Oat flour is a great addition to chocolate chip cookies—not to mention a tasty source of whole grains— because the toffee flavor notes in the oats play perfectly with brown sugar, nuts, and chocolate. A combination of coconut oil (I use unprocessed virgin oil) and almond butter (the kind you have to stir) stands in for eggs and butter. I test my recipes in grams, so if you have a scale, you'll find it super easy to duplicate my results. Rather than rounding up or down the volume measures—just to make them look clean and simple on the page—I'm giving you the closest equivalent in cups and spoons to show you how much much more streamlined it is to measure in grams and how awkward cups and spoons can be when you want accuracy!

Featured in: An Irresistible, Oat-y, Nutty, Salted Chocolate Chip Cookie. —Alice Medrich

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 1 cup plus 3 tablespoons (150) grams all purpose unbleached flour
  • 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon (80 grams) oat flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt (I use fine sea salt)
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3/4 cup (150 grams) packed (not too firmly) organic light brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon (80 grams) almond butter (the kind you have to stir)
  • 2 tablespoons (30 grams) water
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup (112 grams) virgin coconut oil, melted and warm
  • 3/4 cup (130 grams) chocolate chips, or coarsely chopped chocolate
  • 3/4 cup (75 grams) coarsely chopped walnuts
  • Flaky sea salt
Directions
  1. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Preheat a non-convection oven to 350F (or adjust accordingly for convection). Line two baking sheets with parchment.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk the all purpose and oat flours, salt, and baking powder until thoroughly blended. Set aside.
  3. In another bowl, combine the brown sugar, almond butter, water, and vanilla. Add the warm coconut oil and whisk until thoroughly blended.
  4. Pour in all of the flour mixture and stir with a spatula or wooden spoon just until all of the flour is incorporated.
  5. Add the chocolate chips and walnuts and stir only until they are distributed.
  6. Place slightly rounded tablespoons (28 grams) of dough 2 inches apart on the lined baking sheets. Press each mound of dough until it's about 1/2 inch thick and 2 inches in diameter. I do this roughly with my fingers so that cookies don't look too flat or smooth. Sprinkle each cookie with a tiny pinch of the flakey salt.
  7. Bake 10-12 minutes, or until the cookies are very slightly golden brown at the edges (they will still be very soft to the touch, but will firm up after they cool).
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See what other Food52ers are saying.

  • Twinsx2mom
    Twinsx2mom
  • AntoniaJames
    AntoniaJames
  • Alice Medrich
    Alice Medrich
  • Sarah
    Sarah
Alice Medrich
My career was sparked by a single bite of a chocolate truffle, made by my Paris landlady in 1972. I returned home to open this country’s first chocolate bakery and dessert shop, Cocolat, and I am often “blamed” for introducing chocolate truffles to America. Today I am the James Beard Foundation and IACP award-winning author of ten cookbooks, teach a chocolate dessert class on Craftsy.com, and work with some of the world’s best chocolate companies. In 2018, I won the IACP Award for Best Food-Focused Column (this one!).

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16 Reviews

Twinsx2mom
Twinsx2mom May 22, 2018
This cookie dough needed extra water. They were difficult to work. Honestly, they were nothing special. I prefer the Ovenly vegan cookies.
 
Delia
Delia March 24, 2018
These cookies surprised me by tasting better the next day, when they were cold. Nutty and delicious.
 
sticksnscones
sticksnscones March 9, 2018
Delicious cookie but I had difficulty with the dough coming together. I had to carefully form & knead each dough ball to come together before pressing down on the cookie sheet. Did I miss something???
 
Jan
Jan February 20, 2018
Yes please respond. Good questions.
 
Barbara W.
Barbara W. February 15, 2018
Food 52 why don’t you answer the questions?
 
Bawa
Bawa February 12, 2018
“Coconut oil melts at a higher temperature than butter” The (liquid) state of the jar of coconut oil in my pantry on a warm summer day begs to differ. According to Wikipedia, butter is a liquid at 90-95 degrees F, and coconut oil 76 F. Maybe the difference in spread can be attributed to the presence of 15-18ish % water in butter vs. no water in coconut oil and how this interacts with the sugar? Or just a high ratio of dry to wet, which it seems one could tweak if spread is desired. In any case, the no spreading situation seems like a no brainer for the roll, chill and slice technique as an alternative to scooping and smooshing down.
 
Alice M.
Alice M. February 20, 2018
I appreciate your analytical thinking here...! Indeed, the water in the recipe is meant to replace the water content of butter because that moisture and steam is necessary to the recipe and the consistency of the dough. But more water will not change the melting/spreading characteristics here and may make the dough more crumbly than it tends to be already. Different kinds of fat work differently in recipes. I try to appreciate the fact that swapping ingredients creates whole new recipes, rather than getting too worried that one type off ingredient doesn't work the exact same way as another. If the new recipe is delicious, then I'm happy. I think of these cookies as a new type of chocolate chip cookies, rather than an exact replica of something familiar.
 
Kelly
Kelly February 12, 2018
I’m allergic to almonds and was going to ask the same as dorrys— I was thinking of using sunflower seed butter becuase it seems a little more neutral than peanut butter, but I dunno — I’m assuming all three butters have the same fat content and would cook similarly?
 
Alice M.
Alice M. February 20, 2018
definitely try this and let us know.
 
the M.
the M. September 1, 2018
I substituted tahini (making for a vegan friend with nut allergy) and they came out delicious! I also made them gluten free, using in a combination of buckwheat, teff & sweet rice flour for the all purpose flour and the cookies were a winner! I also had to replace the walnuts with dried cherries b/c of nut allergy. BUT this recipe is definitely a great template for my first experiments with vegan cookies!
 
dorrys
dorrys February 12, 2018
Can the almond butter be replaced with peanut butter? The eaters in this case don't like almond butter. Thanks
 
Alice M.
Alice M. February 20, 2018
I'm betting yes. Please try it. I think it will be delicious. Peanut butter and almond butter are similar in composition.
 
margotjane
margotjane February 12, 2018
Is it a cup and a half of sugar or three quarters of a cup? Most recipes say a cup of sugar is 200 grams.
 
Sarah
Sarah February 18, 2018
would love to know as well!
 
Alice M.
Alice M. February 20, 2018
A whopping mistake on my part! The volume measure should actually be 3/4 cup—thus 150 grams is correct. We will change the volume measure to 3/4 cups immediately. My great apologies. Good catch Margot.
 
AntoniaJames
AntoniaJames February 2, 2018
Thank you for the metric mass measures, and for continuing to make the case that they should be standard in all recipes! ;o)
P.S. These cookies sound to-die-for. Looking forward to trying the recipe soon - they're our favorite kind of Valentine's Day treat.