Babycakes has its origin in NYC and has since opened up a shop in downtown LA. All of their products are vegan and most are gluten-free! Their non-gluten-free products use spelt flour, which I know has been the topic of some gluten vs. non-gluten debates, but they list spelt under their non-gluten-free products, so good for them for naming it that way. (I guess you can tell which side of the argument I stand on.) I have tried their cupcakes and cookies. Their cupcakes are delicious, but the review on that needs to go on another blog. Supposedly, their donuts are phenomenal as well!

The bakery isn’t in the middle of downtown; rather, it’s kind of on one edge of downtown. But as long as you’re on this side of Los Angeles street, you’re fine. The bakery is small but they made do with what space they had. Baked goods line up and stack up in display cases taller than me to your left, a few tables and chairs are on your right, and the cash register sits at the end of the walkway.

A co-worker of mine told me that Babycakes’ cookies were some of the best cookies he’s had, vegan and gluten-free or not. Well, I told him, I’ll be the judge of that. I walked in and immediately ordered a chocolate chip cookie, eyes widened and appetite whetted by the thought of eating every single donut, pastry, cookie, loaf of bread, cupcake, muffin, brownie, and whatever else they had in the entire store. I’ll bet even the paint and tile in this place are vegan and gluten-free.

The cookie smelled delicious:

but was the thinnest cookie ever:

The flatness of the cookie was a definite turn-off. How could a cookie this flat possibly be good? In cookies you look for that moist, soft & fluffy, light-as-a-cloud center with pockets of air in between the structural integrity that is individual crumbs. I didn’t have faith. I was a non-believer. But dude, I paid for this cookie, and hell will freeze over if I don’t eat something I paid for.

Have you ever had one of those moments where your brain turned upside down? Or you got slapped in the face? Or an internal volcano dispelled lava of disbelief all over your body? Metaphorically speaking, at least? A moment where you realize you were dead wrong, that you asserted yourself so unkindly,  and are so embarrassed to admit it except on your cookie blog? Well, that’s me right now.

This cookie was crispy on the outside, soft & moist on the inside — baked exactly right. I almost got over how flat the cookie is real fast. There are enough chocolate chips in there, but a few more wouldn’t hurt. Out of all the vegan cookies I’ve eaten, this tastes the closest to a regular cookie, which isn’t that big of a deal, but I know eating vegan AND gluten-free is scary to some people. If everyone could have this cookie as an introduction to this alternative less-cruelty eating style I think people would be more open to trying new things.

• Taste: Delicious + the smell was super enticing. 10
• Crust and center moistness: crispy crust, soft interior. if it were not as flat it would be better. 9
• Value: $1.50 for a cookie that’s vegan and gluten-free AND TASTES GREAT!! 10
• Overall: My first choice for a cookie now. 10

Babycakes NYC
130 East 6th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90014
(213)623-5555

Hours of Operation
Monday: 10am-8pm
Tuesday-Wednesday: 10am-10pm
Thursday-Saturday: 10am-11pm
Sunday: 10am-8pm

I have an awesome e-mail pal, Jamaica. When I was looking into going to baking, I e-mailed a bunch of people and she was BY FAR the MOST helpful and gave me the MOST insight and most insight out of all the tens of people I contacted. Ashamedly, I took this long to review a cookie of hers!!

I grabbed the LAST vegan chocolate chip cookie (non-vegan to be reviewed in a couple of weeks!). It was wrapped up in plastic wrap and let me tell you: when I unwrapped this cookie the smell was SO inviting. I’ll be honest — I bought this one day and ate it the next, and the strong smell of freshly baked cookie was still there! The smell was comparable to a cookie I baked in the oven myself. First impression was looking GREAT.

Oh, minus the one thing that made me hesitant; it was a pretty flat cookie:

I got over it really quickly, though, thanks to the smell and taste. This cookie was delicious. There was something “different” about the taste of this cookie that I could not put my finger on, though. It was evident in the first few bites but I suppose I got used to it after that. Other than that one different taste, this cookie tasted like any other cookie! And I cannot get over the texture: it was super moist and very soft. This is a blurry picture, but it shows the middle of the cookie + the chocolate chunk distribution:

…okay, not a great picture of the texture, but you can make out some of the round pieces that make up the entire cookie, rather than cookie crumbs that stick together and make the cookie tough and hard. This piece is a section of the cookie that had a LOT of chocolate chunks in it, but as you can see the chunks are layered, so you’re sure to get at least a couple of pieces of chocolate in every bite.

• Taste: Loved it, and despite that odd flavor, I would still give this a 9
• Crust and center moistness: VERY moist, even the next day. 10
• Value: $1.75 for a large cookie. Quite pricey for a cookie, but it is vegan, and in West LA. 7
• Overall: Definitely a must-try. 9!!

Jamaica’s Cakes
11511 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90064
310.478.1971

First of all, the sheer number of calories: each cookie has OVER 500 CALORIES in it. That’s about the same number of ingredients this cookie has. Or a little less than a third of my daily caloric intake. Why the heck does this cookie have so many calories? It is indeed a sizeable cookie, but FIVE HUNDRED TWENTY EIGHT CALORIES BIG!??!

No dairy and no eggs (potato and tapioca starches and non-dairy leavening lend themselves to emulsify in the place of eggs). Also lacking in taste. I thought this cookie was very bland. The only tasty part of this cookie is the chocolate chips. The best thing about this cookie is that is actually a moderate amount of chocolate chips in here. The cookie also has quite a bit of height:

You can also see in this picture that the cookie has the same texture throughout the cookie from outside to inside, circumference to center. It’s not crunchy, but rather it is on the soft and crumbly side. I hate crumbly. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I would say pass on this cookie.

The Chicago Diner
3411 N. Halsted
Chicago, IL 60657
(773)935-6696

For more information on other Chicago Diner baked goods: http://www.veggiediner.com/wp/?p=934

• Taste: 5 Not a good cookie.
• Crust and center moistness: soft and crumbly
• Value: Too expensive.
• Overall: PASS.

I got a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge cookie. Perfect to split in 3! This was made with whole wheat and oat flour, which gave the cookie a nutty texture in addition to the already nutty walnuts in this chocolate chip cookie. Hands down one of the best vegan cookies I’ve ever ever eaten. Great taste, not too crunchy or soft, and the lack of enough chocolate chips is overshadowed by the walnuts.

Veggie Grill locations:

8000 Sunset – Los Angeles
8000 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90046 | map
Phone 323.822.7575 | hours 11am to 11pm

Plaza El Segundo
720 Allied Way, El Segundo, CA 90245 | map
Phone 310-535-0025 | hours 11am to 10pm

University Center – Irvine
4213 Campus Drive, Irvine, CA 92612 | map
Phone 949.509.0003 | hours 11am to 10pm

Irvine Spectrum Center
81 Fortune Drive, Irvine, CA 92618 | map
Phone 949.727.9900 | hours 11am to 10pm

Also great were the slaw and carrot cake. I would suggest passing on the mac n cheese.. that just tasted weird.

• Taste: 9
• Crust and center moistness: Great texture, not dry at all but not soft either
• Value: err.. i forget. sorry!
  
• Overall: I love this restaurant, and I love this cookie. I’m going to rate this a very high 9, as I still haven’t found a cookie that beats Michelle’s Naturally Vegan cookies.

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies - Trader Joe's

In a few words: it falls short. Their vegan cookies are in white paper bags to differentiate them from their non-vegan counterparts which are in brown paper bags (see previous blog post linked above), possibly to indicate purity… but I’d rather not be a Puritan.

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie - Trader Joe's

As you can see in this picture, the 135-calorie non-dairied and non-egged cookie is slightly smaller than the palm of my hand. Also visible in this picture is the grainy texture; it was a bit dry and crumbly, but not hard. The taste was lacking in some ways: no smooth flavor to go down nicely. Bland even. The chocolate chip + some nuts in every bite helped spice up the flavor some. But not enough.

• Taste: 5
• Crust and center moistness: dry, crumbly, soft
• Value: around $4 or so for 11 small-ish cookies, $0.37 / cookie. 7
• Overall: This is one cookie not to have in your cookie jar. 6. Stick to their Trader Joe’s Chocolate Chunk Cookie. But, I reiterate, if you gotta go vegan, do Michelle’s Naturally Vegan Chokolada Chip Cookies.

Chocolate Chip Cookie -- Real Food Daily

After seeing that his IPA beer bottle still had some beer in it, I made a deal: I’d sit there and wait for him to finish while I indulged in my vegan cookie. (You’ll remember that I had another vegan cookie earlier, Michelle’s Naturally Vegan, and the review is here.) As shown above, I was not kidding when I said the cookie is HUGE! The thickness is about the same size as a regular cookie. When I bit into it, my very first reaction was, “whoa…that tastes different…” It’s much more granular and crumbly than a regular cookie. Smells just like a regular cookie, looks just like a regular cookie, …the taste took a bit of getting used to. My date compared it to chalk. It is dry, grainy, WAY WAY WAY not enough chocolate chips. There’s no real “bite” or “crunch” to the cookie. There were many times when I bit into the cookie that I had NO chocolate chips, and I’m a huge proponent of having at least a chocolate chip in every bite. I ate some more this morning in the car and left the cookie in the sun for a bit; I think it would have tasted better warm as it provided some moisture.

I found out that besides lacking dairy and eggs, this cookie has buckwheat flour and agave in replacement of sugar. The agave does a good job in sweetening up the cookie. I’ve tasted sweeter and I might have actually preferred even sweeter to get over the buckwheat flour taste. The only time I’ve had buckwheat flour was in soba noodles (coincidentally, my meal for the night!!) and it tastes NOTHING like the taste of the noodles. I still have some left actually. …I don’t think I’ll finish it. This can pass as a cookie, but that’s all I’m gonna say about it.

• Taste: 5
• Crust and center moistness: dry and grainy
• Value: $3.25 for an organic vegan cookie the size of my hand. Considering the size, organic veganness of it and how rare it is to find a vegan cookie, it’s a pretty good value. Considering taste, it’s much overpriced.
• Overall: PASS. Michelle’s Naturally Vegan cookies still reigns supreme in my book for vegan cookies. Go to Real Food Daily for the food, not the cookies; if you want dessert, I HIGHLY suggest the brownies; it’s DELICIOUS!! Overall I’ll give the cookies here a 4.

At any point in time I will usually have this stash of cookies in my drawer at work:

::grin::

Michelle has the cutest picture of herself on the front and touts that her cookies are all natural with nothing artificial, contain no trans fats, are fruit juice sweetened and are made with organic ingredients.

I’ve only eaten the Chokolada Chip cookies, but there’s a Peanut Butter Apricot that intrigued me. Now, on with the review!

A standard sized cookie, about the size of my palm. I’ll point out one negative in that the cookies are very crumbly. They take a tiny bit of effort to bite into, and it can get a bit messy but from then on it’s just heaven!! I don’t know how she achieves that “buttery” goodness in a vegan cookie, but somehow she did. This cookie always disappears too quickly Also worth noting is that I’m usually really picky about my chocolate chips in my cookies. I usually like more chocolate chips than less, but this cookie — as you can tell from the photos — don’t have as many as I would normally like. However, in this special cookie the ratio is very well balanced due to the very tasty dough. I can tell these cookies are sold much more fresh than other pre-packaged cookies (a downside is that one time I think I bought a bag of these cookies that had gone a little stale…). And might I mention that one of these chocolate chip cookies is a mere 135 calories??

When I first ate these cookies, I was so impressed that I actually emailed Michelle herself. She ever-so-kindly emailed me back, thanking me for the compliments. That’s another great thing: the customer service of a self-starter is wonderful! I gave one to my meat-eating friend and even he admitted it was one of the best he’s had. Unfortunately, you may not be able to find these cookies everywhere. I get mine at Miss Winston’s on 31st and Ocean Park in Santa Monica for $4.99 (my last post stating that these cookies were $4.69 needs to be corrected but it still doesn’t change my opinion about them!). The Whole Foods on National and Barrington sells it at a monstrous $5.69, but the Whole Foods on Lincoln and Rose doesn’t sell it at all which was appalling.

• Taste: 10
• Crust and center moistness: A little dry, but it’s buttery at the same time
• Value: $5 for 8 almost-fresh cookies, each at 135 calories; GREAT!!
• Overall: If you don’t do eggs or dairy or either, this is a MUST HAVE in your pantry. If you don’t steer in that direction, it’s still a REALLY REALLY good cookie. 10!!

So what do you think of the vegetarian / vegan trend getting into your baked goods? Do you believe that something lacking eggs and dairy could be this good?!