A Very Good Vegan Cookie !

please enjoy this recipe, please

When tasked with creating crave-able baked goods for our largely diaspora identifying customers in Tel Aviv, I knew if I could churn out some American classics the people would flock like hungry little seagulls. And I was 100% correct. The greatest benchmark of course being the Chocolate Chip Cookie. But this mission was interestingly twofold for me. I wanted to give people a great nostalgic experience to fill a hole in their day/lives, and I wanted to do the same for myself. Because, as it turns out, the best way for me to wade through the muck in my life is by baking something I long for until I nail it. It’s the why/how I became known for making the only NYC style bagel in Israel and then more recently the best pita here in Los Angelas. I bake what I miss the most from where I used to live, pure catharsis therapy (and only costs as much as the ingredients!)

There are countless opinions on what makes a perfect chocochip c, and I will go into absolutely none of those opinions here and instead focus on my own opinions. But you should know that your opinions matter, too. To you and and you alone.

For me, I want caramelized crispy edges, chewy gooey centers, a good amount of salt, and the right ratio of chocolate. This cookie is giving all of that and then some. Notes of cardamom whip your mouth into a frenzy, the halva goes nuts in the oven melted and oozing into marshmallow toffee like puddles, and you can’t even believe what you are tasting when it cools enough to eat. A vegan cookie that slaps as hard as its non vegan counterpart.

It’s a little bit American and a lot Tel Aviv.

I fell so hard for this newly minted cookie that when Ben Mims from the LA Times asked me that year to contribute a recipe for their Christmas cookie roundup, I immediately knew this was the one I wanted to share.

Halva Cardamom Chocolate Chip Tahina Cookies 

Crunchy, crispy edges, a chewy center, gooey halva, and a kiss of cardamom make these cookies highly addictive. Baker beware!