One of my daughters has an egg allergy. She loves sweets (as do all my children), particularly muffins, cookies and cupcakes. I use a lot of Ener-G Egg Replacer, which works great in muffin recipes (as long as I use a whisk to whip it with warm water until the powder is fully dissolved and frothy), and I am grateful to Nabisco because neither Chips Ahoy nor Oreos contain eggs at all. I am also super grateful to my friends at Butterflake, particularly owner Richie Heisler, who knows and cares about families with allergies and makes sure to have egg-free cupcakes in the freezer at all times, ready to be decorated. (And frankly, they are great cupcakes and I even prefer them to the ones containing egg!)

In addition to a great birthday cake recipe altered from a chocolate-peanut butter cake in Bon Appetit that does not contain eggs (a share for another day), my sister Jacqueline gave me a recipe for soft-baked chocolate chip cookies that does not contain eggs to begin with. And it’s fantastic. Since there’s nothing missing, there’s nothing to replace, which makes my daughter feel good. She’s a great cookie-making assistant, too. Since this is the recipe I’m sharing with my daughter’s kindergarten class for them to make this week, I happily share it with you here as well.

Ingredients:

Cream together the margarine or butter and sugars, then add the other wet ingredients. Combine the dry ingredients and mix until well-combined. Add chocolate chips at the end.

Roll heaping tablespoons into round balls and place on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper. (The recipe will yield 24-32 cookies, but you can save any remainder by freezing dough in a Ziploc bag.) Flatten balls slightly with two fingers or a fork. Bake at 350 for 8 to 12 minutes. When you pull them out, they should be puffed up, almost doughy-looking, and should be barely browned. They will shrink down and look like Entenmann’s. Enjoy!

By Elizabeth Kratz