Vegan Date & Chocolate Cookies, soft and crumbly!

These Vegan Date & Chocolate Cookies are so easy to make and are perfect with your favourite hot drink.  For me, it’s black coffee!

They are soft, crumbly, and a little bit chewy.   And that’s why I called them cookies and not biscuits.

Being British, biscuits would be my first thought when naming a recipe like this.  However, traditionally, biscuits were twice-baked and crispy.  But these are neither, hence Cookies!

English Heritage has a fantastic article on The History of the Biscuit.   I found the bit about ‘Ship’s Biscuits’ being used as postcards, particularly interesting!

The process and cooking take approximately an hour, but you do need to allow a little extra time for the cookies to cool before adding the chocolate. But once made can be stored in an airtight container for a few days. However, because I like my chocolate really hard, I also store mine in the fridge if I have room.

Making these Vegan Date & Chocolate Cookies could not be easier!

Start by creaming the butter, sugar, and golden syrup together in a bowl. You can use a food processor but these are so quick and easy to make, I really wouldn’t want the extra washing up!

Then stir in the vanilla extract and chopped dates.

Add the flour and salt and bring together with your hands to form a soft dough.

I love the look of the dough with the dates in and, although dates are sticky, this dough is really easy to handle.

Then wrap in cling-film and pop in the fridge to rest for at least 20 minutes. This is quite an important step if you want your cookies to hold their shape. Chilling cools the fat content in the cookie dough. Without this, the dough may spread during cooking as the fat in a warm dough will heat quicker. Thus, it may cause the cookies to spread before they have cooked.

But, you can store unbaked cookie dough in the fridge for longer periods, of up to 3 days, if you want to make the dough well ahead of time.

Cutting out the cookies

Now is a good time to preheat the oven as per recipe directions.

I used a 6 cm / 2½ inch biscuit/cookie cutter which, at 1 cm / ½ inch thick gave a yield of 14 cookies, plus my ‘taste-test’ one ????. I always find there is that little bit of dough left that won’t make another cookie but I just can’t throw it away. Thus, it becomes my ‘taste-test’ cookie. A bit misshapen, but still worthy of being cooked!

However, you may want them a bit thinner or thicker, the choice is yours. Just remember it will alter the calories per cookie, and you will probably need more chocolate if you make more than 14 cookies from your dough.

Line your oven/baking tray with either a reuseable liner, as I have done, or with parchment paper. If you haven’t got either then lightly dust it with flour rather than greasing it as this can also cause spreading.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 18-20 minutes, until the cookies are starting to brown around the edges. Then transfer to a wire rack to cool before adding the chocolate coating.

Coating the Cookies with chocolate – yummy!

I must admit, I am not a massive chocolate or cookie/biscuit eater. I much prefer savoury foods. However, when the fancy does take me these vegan date & chocolate cookies have the perfect blend with half plain and half coated with chocolate.

This method of coating them is really easy and has virtually no waste, especially as my husband is always there to ‘lick’ the bowl!

To do this, the best way to melt the chocolate is in a bowl over hot water in a saucepan. This is so the chocolate will stay at the right consistency until you have finished. This is particularly handy for someone like me who is not that artistic and need to take my time. Even when the heat has been turned off, the chocolate should stay in a melted state for a long time.

I use the aid of a spatula to ‘paint’ the chocolate on the cookies. This is because I find it difficult, personally, to get an even coating if I just dip them.

If you have any tips on how you do it, please leave me a comment below. ????

Then place the coated cookies on a wire rack to set. You can store them in an airtight container for a few days, if they last that long!

Happy Cookie making and ENJOY! ???? And if you like these, you will love my Vegan Date & Nut Chocolate Cake Bites, they are also gluten free!