Ocean’s Eleven-th Hour Cookies

I’m here to completely blow your mind people. It’s the 11th hour, you suddenly realize you have a myriad of guests coming over, and with all of your holiday preparations, somehow you completely missed baking cookies (or perhaps you did bake them, but the stress of the season caused you to consume them all. Or your pet/child/spouse ate the ones you’d been specifically saving for this day all without you realizing until this very moment. You’ll have to kill them later, but no time for that now!!! Uh…I mean… Merry Christmas! 😉 ).

I’ve got your solution right here people. Do you have a few dollars on hand? (I know, probably not given all the gift buying, so scrounge in those couch cushions! Or rob from your pet/child/spouse (you’re pet doesn’t need the money from their food budget – they just ate all those cookies! You’re child doesn’t need money for college – after their cookie thievery, they’re clearly going to wind up in prison before then anyway! You’re spouse doesn’t need money to buy you your Christmas present….actually, scratch that one. Steal money from your pet or child 😉 (oh, your dog/cat doesn’t have a part time job to help contribute to the household? Well la-di-da Mister Fancy Rich-pants. Must be nice! What’s that you say? You’re calling animal services on me? 😉 )). Do you have a grocery store within a ten minute vicinity of your house? Then drive over there stat! Enter the magical cookie aisle, and you will now have a panoply of cookie choices to choose from!

“But Amber!” I can hear you exclaim, “a) There’s no way these will be as good as homemade!” (to that statement, I concede your point, but this is an emergency, and needs must (fun side note on that phrase in case you’ve ever wondered, it’s actually an idiomatic shortened form of the phrase “Needs must when the devil drives”. In this case, I believe our devil is the evil, evil cookie thief who forced us into this precarious position in the first place). “b) We’re going for vegan cookies here, and I can’t imagine that any grocery store cookie worth its salt would be vegan, and besides, I don’t have time to read the ingredient list on fifty million boxes of cookies! At that point, I might as well just buy cookie baking ingredients and go home and make more!” (which is, of course, another option if you have more than five seconds available to you. Alternatively, get your recently arrived guests to slave over a hot stove and make them for you, while other guests fan you with palm fronds. Just a suggestion 😉 ). I’ve got you covered on that front here too people. Believe it or not, there are actually quite a lot of boxed cookies out there that are “accidentally” vegan and thus I am here to provide you with a quick and dirty list, so you can just pop in and grab what you need off the shelf! Ta-da! Christmas saved. I take payment for my services in gold doubloons.

If you have time to Google this (just Google “accidentally vegan treats cookies desserts” or something like that and you’ll see what I mean), or are looking for more than just cookies, you can definitely find many, many sites dedicated to this exact thing. However, here’s you two second guide to help you navigate that treacherous aisle that you thought you had to avoid:

1.Oreos (yeah for chemicals! Who knew they could be so delicious? Also, I have totally had the cinnamon roll version of these and they’re delicious. I’m a cinnamon fiend though, so, of course, take that with a grain of salt 😉 )

2.Fudgee-o’s (so chocolatey, so delicious, soooo 2 seconds away from coming home with me)

3.Unfrosted Pop Tarts (OK, this isn’t exactly a cookie, but I’m trying to think in advance here for you people, I’m saving Christmas morning breakfast for you while I’m at it. You’re welcome. Make SURE they’re the unfrosted kind though! For some unbeknownst-to-me reason, it isn’t even dairy in the frosting that causes the frosted version to be non-vegan. It’s actually gelatin. So…they’re not even vegetarian – what up wi’ dat?!!)

4.Christie brand maple leaf cream cookies (Oh Canada indeed!)

5.A few varieties of Voortman cookies are vegan (I hate Voortman cookies personally, but I have to hand it to them on the vegan front. The Almond Crunch cookies and the vanilla, strawberry and chocolate wafer cookies all appear to be vegan. Still disgusting, but vegan. Unrelated note – cardboard is also vegan.)

6.Dad’s brand classic oatmeal cookies (I heart oatmeal, so this one’s a total win for me!….if I ever bought store bought cookies that is 🙂 There actually seems to be a decent number of oatmeal cookies in general that are vegan).

7.The No Name fudge covered graham cookies and fudge-striped shortbread that Loblaws sells? Totally vegan! (Can I get a “what, what!!!??” Awesome.)

8.President’s Choice Cookie Butter (again, not a cookie per se, but spread this on anything you want, and now you can call it a cookie!)

9.Many versions of Teddy Grahams are vegan (obviously if you’re avoiding honey, not the honey version, so double check ingredients on this one).

10.Many brands of digestive cookies are also vegan. These might not be the most exciting cookies in the world, but when combined with the aforementioned cookie butter, you’ve got yourself some scrumptious Digestive Cookie Butter Sandwich cookies. Drool.

I feel 10 is enough to get you started on your emergency journey. But now too, you can go forward into the future knowing that the prepacked aisle is not as fraught with disappointment as you thought it was!

Merry Christmas everybody. May all your cookie days be merry and bright!