Marbled Cookie (Vegan & Gluten-Free)

Marbled Cookie (GF & V)

One part of this dough is flavored with vanilla bean paste and the other with black cocoa and dark chocolate chips. They are scooped and rolled for an eye-catching marbled dough design. You want to know what the best part is? These cookies are gluten-free and vegan so everyone can enjoy them!

Reasons to Love this Cookie

-Gluten Free-I am using King Arthur Gluten-Free flour blend. It is used as a one for one substitute for all purpose flour. I like to bake with this flour as it has a less crumbly texture than using almond flour in baked goods. It still has the slightest crumbly texture at the end of eating the cookie but is pretty much unnoticed by my regular gluten free eating cookie fans.

-Vegan-Violife is the brand of vegan ‘butter’ I am using for this cookie, and it is a winner for baking! I cannot sing it’s praises enough. It feels, tastes, and bakes like dairy butter and I will be using this in more vegan recipes in the future.

-Texture-This cookie bakes up tall and soft. It still has a great chew to it that stays chewy for days after baking. If you are storing these cookies long term, up to a week, they will get crisper around the edges of the cookie.

-Flavor-Who doesn’t love vanilla and chocolate? The vanilla part of the dough has added vanilla bean paste for an extra vanilla flavor, and the chocolate side is flavored with black and dutch processed cocoa with mini dark chocolate chips. These to doughs combined create a very delicious vanilla and chocolate cookie.

Ingredients You Need

-Plant Based Butter-cold. I used VioLife, I also recommend Country Crocks baking sticks and Miyokos sticks  of plant-based butters. If you only have coconut oil or vegan butter spread, make sure it is cold prior to mixing and increase the cornstarch in your recipe to 3 tablespoons. I find that the tubs of vegan butter have more moisture in them and the cookies to spread more.

-Organic Brown Sugar-vegan friendly sugar

-Pure Cane Sugar-vegan friendly sugar

-Gluten-Free Flour- I am using King Arthur blend of flour. You can use your favorite gluten free flour if it is a one-to-one ratio of all-purpose flour. Bob’s Redmill has a great gluten free flour mix as well. I do not recommend using almond flour, but you can replace up to half of the flour with almond four if you prefer the taste and texture of almond flour in your baked goods.

-Baking Soda & Powder-these are important in this recipe since we are not using eggs. It will help the cookie bake up nice and tall.

-Plant-Based Milk-Because there are no eggs in this cookie recipe, I am using plant-based milk for added moisture in the dough. I am a huge fan of Ripple plant-based milks. Their plant-based half and half milk honestly got me through most of my dairy free journey. If you have a plant-based protein drink, even better since the protein in the drink will help the structure of the cookie. When I reworked this recipe on the second try, I used Ripple vanilla shake and was very pleased with the results of the cookie.

-Cornstarch- I use only a tablespoon in this recipe to soften the dough and keep it tall and doughy. Often, I find that baking gluten free means that texture is sacrificed, and a lot of baked goods fall flat without the structure of gluten to keep them tall and fluffy. I still wanted a tall cookie that wasn’t flat, and cornstarch helps achieve that.

-Black Cocoa powder- I love the intense dark color and mild flavor this cocoa gives these cookies. If you don’t have this available to you, you can use any unsweetened cocoa powder as a substitute.

-Mini Chocolate Chips-I am using mini chocolate chips from the brand Enjoy Life. They have a range of allergy free chocolate chips, and the flavor of their chocolate is great. The mini chips are nice to use since we are scooping very small portions of dough to achieve a marbled effect and the mini chips don’t get in the way.

-Salt-I’m using a very small amount of salt in this recipe because the butter is salted, and I don’t want the dough to be too salty.

Let’s Make Cookies

I start with cold butter and cream on high with the sugars for at least 3-5 minutes. I like for my butter and sugar mixture to be light, fluffy, and creamy. Cold butter helps the cookies stay taller during baking and is important when using plant-based butters since most have a lower melting point than butter.

Next, I add the vanilla extract and plant-based milk and continue to mix until incorporated.

In a separate bowl I sift the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cornstarch. I mix the flour in until it just comes together into a soft dough.

I give the dough a few turns by hand with a spatula making sure the bottom of the bowl is mixed thoroughly.

I then dived the dough equally between two bowls. In one bowl I add the vanilla bean paste and mix in.

In the other bowl add the cocoa powder and mini chocolate chips and mix thoroughly by hand.

Using a three-ounce scoop, I scoop a very small portion of the vanilla dough onto the edge of the scoop. I then scoop a small amount of the chocolate dough and continue alternating between the two doughs until my cookie scoop is full of marbled dough.

I release the dough onto a parchment lined baking tray and roll them between my palms to smooth out the edges.

I continue to repeat these steps for the remaining cookie dough. It does take a little more time than just scooping dough, but the results are so fun, it makes it worth it. It took me about 10 minutes to scoop all the dough. This recipe makes 18 cookies.

**Please refer to videos on my Instagram , Facebook , and Pinterest for visuals on how I stuff these cookies and make marbled cookie dough**

I refrigerate the dough for an hour before baking to allow the plant-based butter to firm up. You can leave them in the fridge overnight or you can freeze the dough as well for up to 3 months.

I bake these at 375*F for 12-14 minutes. They won’t necessarily be golden brown since the marbling of the chocolate dough will mask the color but a good way to tell the cookies are done is when they are puffed up and the edges look dry.

The cookies puff up during baking but as they cool will sink down slightly. They have a wonderful crispy edge because of this.

I love the pattern and alternating flavors of vanilla and chocolate in this cookie, and the melty chocolate chips are wonderful as well. I also love that I can bake these for so many more people to enjoy and share my cookies!

If you try this recipe and love it as much as I do, please tag, follow, and like @sunshinetxcookies on Instagram and Facebook. New posts every Tuesday and Thursday so be sure to follow me for more delicious cookie recipes. Happy Baking!