Martha Stewart is considered by many to be one of the home baker’s best friends. Who am I to argue? Her recipes are usually pretty simple and the results are usually great and often exceptional. And even more important, many of her recipes are easily veganized. I’ve had great success converting many of Martha’s recipes by simply substituting Ener-G egg replacer for the eggs and Earth Balance Buttery Sticks for the butter.

One recent conversion was the Ne Plus Ultra Cookie recipe, which she describes as “Oversize and dense with chocolate chips, raisins, pecans, and more, these chunky cookies might just be the ultimate.” OK, I’m not sure about the ultimate (for that, see my recipe from last month), but it is a fine vegan chocolate chip cookie.

You can find the recipe at http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/ne-plus-ultra-cookies. I substituted the equivalent of two eggs worth of Ener-G egg replacer for the eggs and an equal amount of Earth Balance for the butter. I’m sure other substitutions would work just as well, and you may even want to experiment with different measurements.

Even better than the Ne Plus Ultra Cookies are the Banana-Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cookies. In fact, the Banana-Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cookies make a superior vegan cookie that in Martha’s words you can “find the flavors of two bakery classics: chocolate chip cookies and banana bread.” True enough. This is a cookie with a moist, cake-like texture that really is reminiscent of banana bread. The dough can also be spread into a parchment paper lined 9″x13″ pan and baked as bars with fantastic results by increasing the baking time to 15-20 minutes (your mileage may vary).

The Banana-Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cookie recipe can be found at http://www.marthastewart.com/chocolatechunk. As with the Ne Plus Ultra Cookie, simply replace the butter with and equal amount of Earth Balance Buttery Sticks and replace the egg with 1 egg equivalent of Ener-G egg replacer.