Makes 12 x 70g cookies
(or 14 cookies if adding the banana & peanut butter)

Ingredients:

• 180g caster sugar
• 200g margarine
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 banana (optional)

• 290g plain white flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 heaped Tbs cocoa

• ~160g vegan 50% cocoa chocolate block (roughly chopped into half squares)
• 1/4 cup crunchy peanut butter (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Blend the sugar, margarine, and vanilla together until like a butter cream
3. If adding the banana, add this now too, and mix well.
4. Add the flour, baking powder, and cocoa, and mix slowly (for quite a while) until it transitions to corse breadcrumbs, and then eventually combines by itself to mostly a dough. (if it’s really cold in your room, you may need to add a tiny dash of oat milk).
5. Then add the roughly choppd chocolate (and peanut butter if using) and fully mix through.
6. Split into 70g portions, and shape into flattened balls on baking parchment on a cool cookie sheet.
7. Bake for 12-15 minutes. It won’t look fully cooked yet, and they’ll still be very soft to touch. But the cooking will continue after you take them out of the oven.
8. Transfer the cookies carefully whilst still on the baking parchment, to a cooling rack and allow to cool for around 5-10 more minutes. Then carefully slide each cookie off the baking parchment onto the cooling rack directly, and allow to cool and breath a while longer.
9. Transfer to an airtight container when fully cooled, and they should be good for a least a week when stored in a cool dark place.

Notes:

• This is a multi-update recipe, now with the added cococa for a deeper flavour and slightly less sweet tasting cookie, and less baking powder too. Trying to help balance my morning coffee routine.
• Jan 2026 update : trialled this with a ripe banana (added before the flour), and 1/4 cup of crunchy peanut butter (at the same time as the chocolate chunks). It’s a tasty addition!
• The receipe today was prepared in deep winter with the room temperature around 8 degrees C, so the margarine stayed very cool comparatively (to earlier versions of this recipe) and the mix barely made it into a dough until after combining into balls with warmer hands. This led to a fluffier lighter cookie, I’m keen to experiment with on warmer days too.
• Chocolate chunks I find are best as half squares of regular chocolate blocks: