Sohla El-Waylly's Rainbow Rave Cookies But Vegan (We're Done!)
#NYTCookieWeekButVegan2023
We did it! Cookie #7, the very last one! ICYMI, this post is the last in a series wherein I veganized all the cookies from the New York Times Cooking Cookie Week, arguably my favourite part of the holiday season. The challenge kicked off with an emotional introduction and some easy vegan butter and egg recipes right here. By the time you’re reading this, all of the posts will be tidily linked at the top of that intro post if you’d like to catch up. PSA: I corrected amounts in the Neapolitan Checkerboard, so if you’re making that one, use the link, not your email version! Okay! HERE THEY ALL ARE!
I actually finished them all last Thursday night; I pushed myself so I could bring them to a party this past Friday. That means I veganized and baked them all in just under two weeks. I was honestly feeling pretty good about that when I learned that there’s a blogger who makes all seven within twenty-four hours every single year! At Friday’s party — hosted by my bestie Maggie who thinks I’m like Meryl Streep (??) — I told two friends of mine who work in advertising about this blogger while munching cookies and smoking weed in the yard. “She’s lying!” they both said immediately, emphatically. “She gets the recipes in advance!” Look, no shade to that blogger, but this is why I love my friends!
I also love my friends and my friends of friends because they went absolutely apeshit for my cookies on Friday night! No one knew they were vegan! When they found out, it blew their minds! I was so happy! I felt like what I’ve always imagined a football star feels like, carted around the field in everyone’s arms, saturated with champagne! I felt like I was having a perfect dream, and would soon wake up! I didn’t! People were like, “These are the best cookies I’ve ever had! Every one I taste I think is the best one until I have the next!” I was so totally overwhelmed and pumped full of dopamine (and by the end also cider and weed) that I didn’t take a single picture, but here are a couple Maggie took:
Yes, I’m flagrantly bragging, 100%. Of course I’m aware that I didn’t do all the work here. The cookies would be nothing without the NYT recipe developers who put out a stellar line-up this year. But this veganizing stunt would not have felt all that cool in the end if it was clear my changes made the cookies taste like sand; if the whole tin had been left untouched. Plus, as I’ve mentioned, the back-end of 2023 kind of sucked for me; please allow me this moment of ultimately pointless glory.
Okay, final brag. Maybe you remember my friend and baking expert, Lauren Bride, from previous posts? I asked her, too, if she’d have known my cookies were vegan. Here’s what she said:
Maybe it shouldn’t make me so proud when someone doesn’t know my cookies have no butter in them. As Lauren says, there’s nothing wrong with a vegan cookie! But the fact that these cookies passed for their non-vegan counterparts strengthened a certain edge in me.
In fact, I’d meant to address that a little in the essay I had planned for Sohla El-Waylly’s Rainbow Rave. The cookie itself is dead-easy, so I thought I’d have plenty of space to talk about sugar and butter and joy and milk and malls and maybe even Christina Tosi. But 2023’s final quarter continues to kick my ass in various ways and I just won’t have time to do it this week. I may still write something about all that stuff in the new year, but knowing me I may move on to something else. So in service of actually finishing the project (at times elusive for me!) I’m including the simple veganization instructions for the Rainbow Rave Cookie below, and that’s about it! I feel bad because I love Sohla El-Waylly so much. I didn’t want to give her short shrift. BUT I already wrote an ode to her in 2022, so feel free to read that!
Finally, I just want to say thank you so much to all my new subscribers who came on board for Vegan Cookie Week — for liking, commenting, messaging, and making this weird, obsessive thing feel worthwhile. And thank you to everyone who’s been around these parts at any point this year, and even before that! And thank you to my dear friends who ate up all my cookies on Friday! I really appreciate it so much.
I’m taking a break until the New Year — after Christmas I’m going to New Orleans! But hopefully I’ll be back with monthly updates on my writing, reading, and eating not toooo long after that.
Also! Obviously I love the challenge of veganizing things! If there’s a recipe or dish you’d like me to take on for 2024, please leave it in the comments, or email me, or DM me on Instagram. No promises, but I’d love to do more of that type of thing as time allows.
Happy holidays everyone, I’m personally asking for a ceasefire and a free Palestine. I hope I get what I wish for, and I hope you all do, too! ❤️
Cookie 7: Rainbow Rave Cookies by Sohla El-Waylly
—> The Actual Recipe (gift link!)
—> To Veganize:
The recipe works great as written using my homemade vegan butter and egg; I think it would also work well with a good vegan block butter like Miyoko’s and Sohla even includes vegan butter as an option in her ingredient list!
After it gelled, I did chill my psyllium egg in advance as she does the egg, not sure if it made any difference, but why not?
I only baked for 12 minutes and they were done and very nice and chewy; next time I would even test 11 minutes as I might prefer a tiny bit softer.
Sohla said I could do any mix-ins I wanted, so I made half my batch with white chocolate chips, Dandie’s marshmallows, and sprinkles, and the other half with dark chocolate chips and Ruffles potato chips. Wild!
Final thing: zero pressure, ever, but should anyone wish to throw a tip my way via subscription, feel free! Annual subs are 50% off, plus you get my first novel, while supplies last! Byeeee!
We just finished my little sample pack of your cookies from last Thursday. I had to cut each one into pieces because my family is greedy. :) thanks so much for this series, loved it.
Great series 👏👏👏👏