Vegan Chocolate-Strawberry Cookies

I've tried pretty much every fad-diet there is in an attempt to be healthy and lose some weight (the aim of almost all girls...), from protein-only to fruit only, and spent years bingeing on sugary and fatty foods.  Recently my body felt like it just said 'no more please' and stopped working, so I tried a detox to fix myself.  I cut out sugar, dairy, meat and refined carbs and effectively ate a vegan diet.

Suddenly I felt fine and my skin cleared up and I had energy and had never felt healthier so I stuck to it (mostly).  As I'm not an ethical vegan I reason its ok for me to eat cakes I've baked every now and then because I try to use eggs from my mum's hens and don't do it often and obviously I have to try otherwise how will I know what they're like......

So today my copy of the new Cox, Cookies and Cake book arrived and I've spent the evening reading it cover to cover (and back again) deciding what I want to make.  But all my baking things are at my mum and dad's house and I am not, so I turned to Veganomicon to see if there was anything Emma-friendly I could bake quickly and found these cookies.  I didn't have raspberry jam so used strawberry instead and halved the quantities to save myself eating them all in one go....

1/2 cup strawberry/raspberry jam
1 cup sugar (I used demerara because I don't have any caster sugar)
1/3 cup vegatable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups plain wholewheat flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
 1/4 tsp salt

1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
2) mix together the jam, sugar, oil and extracts
3) sift the dry ingredients together into a separate bowl and add to the wet mix in 3 batches, mixing well with a fork
4) work the dough into 12 walnut-sized balls and flatten gently onto the baking tray; they don't really spread so you can put them quite close together on the tray.
5) bake for 10 minutes; let them cool for around 5 minutes before you move them off the tray.

YUM