I have never been a huge coffee fan (I do enjoy an occasional oat milk latte every now and then… emphasis on the oat milk and flavored syrup that really minimize the coffee taste, ha!) but these cookies are so addicting, I could eat them for every meal. These are also one of my dad’s favorite cookies, and he isn’t a coffee-drinker, either. He ate them growing up, based on a recipe his mother had from a 1950 Betty Crocker cookbook. My grandmother’s personality comes through in the extra note she added to her recipe card:

This is the original Coffee-and-Spice Drops cookie recipe from Betty Crocker, circa 1950.

My grandmother copied this recipe into her collection of favorites… with her own commentary at the end. I laughed out loud when I read her note!

Needless to say, I also had these cookies several times growing up, as my mom would bake them whenever my dad had a craving. A few months ago, my dad had a hankering for them and my mom declared she would make them without eggs so they would be vegan! (The original recipe calls for shortening, which is often already vegan as long as it’s actually all vegetables, and no lard is snuck in. Even though these days cookie recipes call for butter, it’s easy to swap for vegetable shortening, or just use vegan butter, which is my usual pick.)

We’ve experimented with various replacements for eggs. There are many alternatives and it depends on what you’re baking, but generally speaking, we have found that using a commercial egg replacement powder with a slight twist on the instructions works best for cookies – read more in the instructions below, or in this handy PDF:

Ingredients

• ½ cup softened vegetable shortening or vegan butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp dried egg replacer (we recommend Bob’s Red Mill; you can also use ground flax seed)
• 2 Tbsp applesauce
• ¼ cup cold coffee
• 1 ¾ cups + 2 Tbsp (225 grams) all-purpose flour
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• ¼ tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ tsp. nutmeg
• ½ tsp. cinnamon
• ¼ tsp. allspice or Penzey’s baking spice (optional)

Directions

• Make coffee¹ and keep in fridge until cold.
• Cream together vegan shortening (or butter) and brown sugar thoroughly.
• Stir in cold coffee.
• In a separate bowl, sift all dry ingredients together (flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices), and stir in egg replacer.²
• Gradually add the dry mixture to wet ingredients; stir in applesauce.
• Chill dough at least 1 hour.
• Preheat over to 400 F; line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Drop small balls of the dough (about a teaspoon) about 2-3” apart on baking sheet (if not using parchment paper, make sure the sheet is lightly greased).
• Bake 8-10 minutes.

Notes

1. The coffee should be really strong—espresso works best.
2. Egg replacers instruct bakers to make the “eggs” separately 
(1 Tbsp of replacer powder to 2 Tbsp of water, mix and let sit for 1-5 minutes to thicken) and then pour in with the wet ingredients. However, we have found that mixing the powder in with dry ingredients and adding liquid (we like to use applesauce) as you stir in the rest of the wet ingredients works just fine and saves a little bit of time. (Alternatively, you may use 3 Tbsp liquid Just Egg instead of the dried replacer and omit the applesauce. Add this in at the same time as the cold coffee.)
3. The original recipe we modified calls for 2x as many ingredients, but also makes six dozen cookies! If you want to make a big batch of cookies, simply double all the ingredients and swap out your sheet of parchment paper after three times in the oven.

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