Zombie Apocalypse Chocolate Cookies

First things first - my apologies to all of you who subscribe to Wing It Vegan via email. Last week's email was humongous and it included my most recent ten posts! TEN! Oy! I think I figured out how to change the settings and today you should only be getting an email with just this post. If not, I will give myself a dirty look on your behalf later.

Cookie time! Do you watch The Walking Dead? If  you do and you're all caught up with the most recent episodes, then you might be familiar with Carol's cookies (warning: the recipe link does have a few spoilers.) AMC shared the recipe on their site and Mr. Wing-It tactfully suggested that I should make them. Tactfully, urgently, same thing. Don't worry, there will be no major spoilers here if you live somewhere where the most recent season hasn't aired yet, and soon enough you too will know the meaning behind "Carol's cookies". If you don't watch the show then I'm afraid a lot of this post won't make too much sense to you, but hey cookies!

I made some changes to the recipe because, as I've mentioned before, I prefer a puffy cookie over a chewy cookie, so I skipped the baking soda and used all baking powder instead. Instead of shortening I used coconut oil, but I also made a small test batch with vegetable oil which worked out perfectly. I quadrupled the vanilla because you only live once - kind of. Most importantly, I threw in some pecans!

These are supposed to be zombie-apocalypse friendly cookies because they're not made with eggs or butter or any other ingredient that would be difficult, or maybe impossible to find in a Dystopian environment, and they're made with regular pantry items. Pfft! All my cookies are zombie-apocalypse friendly! As long as I have electricity. And as long as the baking powder hasn't expired and lost its power.

Hopefully I haven't offended Carol with all these changes. Let's hope she doesn't torch my kitchen. With me in it.

Zombie Apocalypse Chocolate Cookies Recipe Type: Dessert Cuisine: Vegan Author: Wing It Vegan. Adapted from amc.com Prep time: 30 mins Cook time: 10 mins Total time: 40 mins Serves: 32 Mini Cookies Ingredients: 2oz (60g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate bar, chopped 1/4 cup coconut or vegetable oil 3 to 4 tbsp applesauce 1/4 cup white sugar 1/4 cup brown sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 cup flour 1 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt 1/4 cup chopped pecans What To Do: First we're going to set up a double boiler to melt our ingredients together. If you have a double boiler you're good to go. If not, pour water into a saucepan (about two inches up) and bring to a boil. In a large glass bowl that will sit on top of your saucepan without touching the water, combine half of the chocolate, coconut oil, applesauce, white sugar, and brown sugar. Start with three tablespoons of applesauce. We don't want to have to add any extra flour later. Reduce the heat to simmer, place the glass bowl over the saucepan and slowly melt all the ingredients together, stirring frequently with a large spoon. When everything is melted, add in the vanilla extract and use a whisk or spoon to vigorously mix everything together. Careful though, if you burn yourself with the chocolate mix you'll be cryin'! Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt, and mix well. Throw in the pecans and refrigerate for 20-30 minutes. I know! Waiting sucks! But we don't want the rest of our chopped chocolate to melt into the warm cookie dough, so wait we must. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 C) and line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. I need to set up the oven rack on the top third half of the oven or everything that I bake will end up with overly browned bottoms. If your oven is a notorious bottom-burner, you may want to do the same for this recipe. Remove the bowl from the fridge and fold in the chocolate chunks. Scoop onto the parchment-lined cookie sheets, not too close together. I use a mini cookie scoop that holds two teaspoons of dough. You can use a regular sized cookie scoop if you're no fun. Kidding. Bake for 10 minutes. They may not seem like they're done, but if you over bake them they will be crispy instead of puffy. Not bad, but not what we're going for. Transfer to a cooling rack and let them cool down to room temperature. Or not. Just don't come crying when you burn your tongue with that chocolate lava.

The funny thing is that I bit myself while I was eating one of these. I gave the fleshy bit inside of my bottom lip a nice big *chomp*.  That sort of makes me a walker! But I'm alive. Then it makes me a cannibal? But I didn't enjoy the taste. Then that makes me a big great clumsy dum-dum? Yes. That's it. Let's see what a random walker thinks about these cookies.

Random walker approves! Thanks for the recipe, Carol. Please don't kill me.


(The photo of the walker belongs to AMC. I do not own the rights to it and I did not take a photo of a cookie-hungry walker in my back yard.)