Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles (Vegan) - cooking recipe

Ingredients

For the topping
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
For the cookies
1/2 cup oil (canola is specified in the book, but any neutral oil will do)
1 cup sugar (I used unrefined cane sugar)
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
3 tablespoons non-dairy milk (I used vanilla oat milk)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon chocolate extract (I used more vanilla as I could not find it)
1 2/3 cups flour (I used spelt flour)
1/2 cup unsweetend cocoa powder (I think carob powder would work well, too)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or try chili powder)

Preparation

Mix the topping ingredients on a large dinner plate. Set aside.
In a large bowl combine oil, sugar, syrup and milk using a fork. You have to stir quite vigorously to get them all combined nicely.
Add the extracts.
In a second bowl combine the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt and spices). Add them to the wet ingredients and stir to combine. Mix until you have a pliable dough. If it is too wet add a tad more flour, if its too dry add a tad more milk.
Roll the dough into balls the size of a walnut. Roll them in the cinnamon-sugar mixture and place them on a paper-lined baking sheet. Use your palm to flatten them into about 2 inch disks. In the book it says to leave at least 2 inches space between the cookies as they will spread, however mine did not spread very much.
Bake in the preheated oven at 180\u00b0C/350\u00b0F for 10-12 minutes. Cookies should crackle on top.
Remove from the oven, let them cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes. Then transfer to a wire-rack to cool completely.