Dairy-Free Monster Cookies

Cookies come in so many shapes and sizes- so why not monster size?

Jokes aside, these are some seriously delicious cookies. Chocolate chips, allergy-friendly M&Ms (Known as No-No’s!), peanut butter, and oatmeal make up these amazing treats.

There are many versions of the monster cookie, but this one just happens to be gluten-free and dairy-free! The incredible thing is that you can’t even tell- and this is coming from someone that made sawdust cookies with my roommate who has celiac disease. (Unfortunately, the cookies we made left much to be desired.) Thankfully, these are moist, chewy, and chocolatey!

Recipe

Instructions:

• 1 cup shortening, lactose-free margarine, or vegan butter
• 2 1/2 cup of peanut butter
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 2 cups white sugar
• 6 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 teaspoons baking soda
• 9 cups oatmeal (use gluten-free oats if you need that!)
• 1 cup dairy-free chocolate chips
• 1 cup No-No’s from No Whey!

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Cream shortening/margarine/vegan butter and peanut butter together.
3. Add sugars and mix well.
4. Mix in the eggs and vanilla. At this step, make sure your mixture is nice, creamy, and fluffy! This is an important step to any good cookie.
5. Mix in dry ingredients. Since there is no flour in these, mix the dough until well-mixed. (If you mix flour-based cookies they can get tough if you overmix the dough.) In fact, the better mixed the dough is, the better the cookies!
6. Scoop the cookies onto the cookie sheets- I used my 1 1/2 tablespoon scoop for nice big ‘monster’ sized cookies!

Side Notes:

• If you have a peanut allergy or just don’t like peanuts, I bet you could use sunflower butter in its place. If you just aren’t a fan of peanut butter… still give this recipe a try! My husband doesn’t like normal peanut butter cookies, but he thoroughly enjoyed these.
• I love the brand No Whey! but this post is not sponsored. I highly recommend their products, and it brought me so much joy to bake with vegan/ allergy-friendly candy-coated chocolate! You can find their website here.
• I used 1/2 cup of lactose-free margarine and 1/2 cup of shortening (because it’s what I had) and the cookies turned out delicious as ever! This is a forgiving recipe.

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Dairy-Free Pie Crust

Pie crust is a versatile ingredient in so many recipes- pot pie, pumpkin pie, quiche, and the list goes on! Who doesn’t enjoy a good pie crust? I particularly love this recipe because of the addition of vinegar. I dislike sweet pie crusts, especially paired with a sweet filling. The slight zing of the vinegar makes everything I put in the pie crust delicious!

My family has used this pie crust for my whole life- and I know why! It’s flakey, delicious, and cheap to make. Best of all, it is dairy-free!

Recipe

Ingredients:

• 5 cups of flour
• 2 cups and 2 tablespoons of shortening
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• Water

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Whisk the flour and salt together.
3. Add the shortening and cut it into the flour mixture with a fork until the shortening is about pea size. Be sure to not work it too much, otherwise it will turn into a strange clump of dough and won’t be flakey.
4. Crack the egg into a liquid measuring cup and add the vinegar. Beat it slightly, then fill up to the 1 cup line with water.
5. Pour the liquid slowly into the flour and shortening mixture and stir until it becomes a dough. It might be slightly crumbly, but that is normal. You might be tempted to add more liquid, but I promise it’s enough! Try not to stir it too much or the pie crust will become tough.
6. Dump the dough out onto the floured counter (Or some parchment paper) and roll it out to the size and shape of your pie tin. It should make three or four 8-9 inch pie crusts. The more times you roll it out, the tougher it becomes.
7. Place the pie crusts into greased pie tins and poke holes with a fork all over the crust. If you have dry beans or baking weights add them on top of parchment paper and place them in the pie crust for the first 10 minutes of baking. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until golden brown.
8. Let the pie crusts cool and fill with your favorite filling. In these pictures, I chose to use banana cream filling! Yum!

Side notes:

• As I said, the more you mess with the dough, the tougher it will become. I try to roll out each individual pie crust only once and fold the extra dough down into the pie crust to make pretty edges.
• One of my family’s favorite ways to use the last bits and pieces of pie dough is to place them on cookie sheets and liberally sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar and then bake them for 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees. A delicious way to use up leftover dough! (And it pairs wonderfully with warm homemade pudding!)