There are few things more satisfying than a warm chocolate chip cookie with a tall glass of milk. Here we've made a few swaps to our classic chocolate chip cookie recipe, most notably being the use of margarine instead of butter. This results in a soft, almost cake-like, dairy-free chocolate chip cookie.
There are a few ingredients that help these chocolate chip cookies with margarine stand out from the rest. For best results, our Test Kitchen recommends using a stick margarine with at least 80% vegetable oil. This will help mimic the fat content of butter. To ensure this recipe results in a dairy-free chocolate chip cookie, be sure to use dairy-free chocolate chips. A mixture of granulated and brown sugar helps these cookies both in flavor and texture. Granulated sugar has a lower moisture content and brown sugar has a higher moisture content. Together, they create the ideal crisp-meets-soft texture. If you'd like to add nuts to the margarine chocolate chip cookies, toast them first. This helps intensify the nutty flavor.
When baking cookies, a quality cookie sheet can make all the difference in the finished cookies. Avoid cookie sheets that have become warped or have years of baked-on grease. The BHG Test Kitchen recommends using shiny, heavy-gauge cookie sheets that have very low or no sides. Avoid dark-color sheets which can cause your cookies to burn.
