Vegan Christmas Cookies | Shortbread & Other Classics

10 Minuten
15 Minuten

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Vegan Christmas Cookies | Shortbread & Other Classics

Table of Contents

    Ho ho ho! What must never be missing at Christmas? That’s right—Christmas cookies. For everyone who loves not only Christmas but also animals, this is the perfect recipe for vegan Christmas cookies. They’re incredibly easy, buttery, and melt-in-your-mouth—just like grandma’s, only vegan.
    What sounds almost like a Christmas miracle is a breeze with our vegan Christmas cookies recipe.

    Nutritional values per serving

    Depending on the size & without toppings

    Ergibt 20 Portionen
    calories 66
    carbs 6.3 g
    fats 4.3 g
    protein 0.7 g

    ZUTATEN

    Portionen
    • 7.5 g flour
    • 2.5 g sugar of your choice
    • 0.025 tsp vanilla extract
    • pinch salt
    • 5 g cold vegan butter
    • 0.025 tbsp
      Organic cashew butter (200 g)
      €6,29 €6,99
      €31,45 /kg
      Vetain Bio Cashewmus aus gerösteten Cashewkernen
    • Toppings: sprinkles, chocolate glaze, gingerbread cream & more

    • Notes

    • Missing an ingredient? No problem! In the recipe you’ll find a substitution table with alternatives to the ingredients listed here!

    Instructions

    1

    Combine flour, sugar, vanilla extract, and salt in a large bowl.
    2 Cut the cold vegan butter into cubes and add it to the flour-sugar mixture together with the cashew butter.
    3

    Knead the dough well (but as briefly as possible!) and shape it into a ball.
    Don’t worry: the dough is softer than you might be used to from other recipes.
    4 Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
    5 Preheat your oven to 180 °C top/bottom heat or 160 °C fan-assisted.
    6 Remove the dough from the fridge, dust your work surface with flour, and roll out the cookie dough for cutting to about 5 mm thickness. If the dough sticks to the rolling pin, dust it with flour as well.
    7 Now comes the best part: cutting out! Use your favorite shapes and cut out your vegan Christmas cookies—trees, Santas, snowflakes, or hearts, as long as it’s nice and festive.
    8 You can briefly knead the remaining dough together, roll it out again, and start another round of cutting.
    9 Place the cookies with some space between them (they spread slightly) on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and bake for about 8–10 minutes on the middle rack.
    10

    As soon as they turn golden, remove them from the oven and let them cool briefly on the tray.
    Important: it’s normal that they’re still quite soft—don’t worry, they’ll firm up as they cool.
    11

    Transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
    Attention: if they’re still too warm, they can break easily.
    12

    Once the cookies are completely cool, you can decorate them—with sprinkles, icing, or a festive cream. You’ll find beautiful ideas in the recipe.
    13

    Then let the cookies rest in a cookie tin for several days. During this time they become wonderfully soft and develop their flavor. They only taste really good after a few days.

    Recipe Note

    Are cut-out cookies like grandma’s still on your Christmas to-do list? With our recipe, you can easily bake vegan Christmas cookies yourself.

     

    Tips for perfect vegan Christmas cookies

    • Don’t knead the dough for too long, otherwise your cookies may become crumbly or tough.

    • If the dough becomes too soft while cutting, simply put it back in the fridge for a short time.

    • If you can’t release the cookies from the cutters, lightly dust the cutters with flour or grease them.

    • Let the cookies cool completely before decorating!

    • Store your vegan Christmas cookies in a cookie tin in a cool, dry place.

     

    Festive decorating ideas

    Vegan Christmas cookies wouldn’t be real cookies without festive decoration, right? Whether colorful, simple, or irresistibly sweet—let your creativity run free!

    Classic but always delicious:

    • Chocolate glaze made from dark chocolate

    • Chocolate sprinkles or cocoa nibs

    • Powdered sugar (perfect if you want quick vegan Christmas cookies)

    Vegan favorites:

    Beautiful cookies:

    • Coarse coconut blossom sugar (sprinkle on before baking)

    • Orange zest (best on dark chocolate)

    Your vegan childhood dream (warning: sugar rush):

    • Colorful sprinkles (stick perfectly to icing or chocolate)

    • Food coloring pens

    • Colored icing

     

    Tasty variations with the vegan cookie dough

    With our base recipe, you can also make other delicious classics:

    • Vegan Christmas cookies with jam: Don’t roll out the dough; instead form small flat balls and press a deep indentation into each. Bake as usual and warm your favorite jam in a saucepan. Once the cookies are baked and cooled, fill the indentations with the warm jam and let it set—these jam cookies are often called “thumbprint cookies.”

    • Vegan gingerbread Christmas cookies: Add some gingerbread spice or our festive gingerbread cream to the dough for extra Christmas flair and optionally top with the cream after baking.

    • Vegan chocolate Christmas cookies: Simply add some baking cocoa to the dough and quickly bake chocolatey vegan cut-out cookies.


    Substitution table

    How often do we want to bake a recipe but are missing certain ingredients or don’t like specific components? For that case, here’s a substitution table so you can adapt the recipe to your taste:

    • Flour → Replace part with ground nuts like almonds, or use gluten-free flour for vegan gluten-free Christmas cookies.

    • Vegan butter → Vegan margarine or (if the recipe doesn’t need to be vegan) dairy butter.

    • Sugar of your choice → Granulated sugar, coconut blossom sugar, powdered sugar, date sugar.

    • Vanilla extract → Vanilla sugar, baking flavoring.

    Our Christmas cookie recipe is vegan, but of course you can also use animal-based ingredients if you like—you’ll notice that the butter cookies are missing nothing even without eggs!

    Table of Contents

      ZUTATEN

      Portionen
      • 7.5 g flour
      • 2.5 g sugar of your choice
      • 0.025 tsp vanilla extract
      • pinch salt
      • 5 g cold vegan butter
      • 0.025 tbsp
        Organic cashew butter (200 g)
        €6,29 €6,99
        €31,45 /kg
        Vetain Bio Cashewmus aus gerösteten Cashewkernen
      • Toppings: sprinkles, chocolate glaze, gingerbread cream & more

      • Notes

      • Missing an ingredient? No problem! In the recipe you’ll find a substitution table with alternatives to the ingredients listed here!

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      Frequently Asked Questions

      Place your cookies in an airtight container and store them in a cool, dry place. After a few days, they’ll taste even better than when freshly baked!

      Yes! Our cookies are vegan, as our cookie dough is made without eggs and without dairy butter.

      Admittedly, that sounds paradoxical at first. However, we simply use vegan butter—an alternative product that can easily replace dairy butter in most recipes. Alternatively, the cookies can be made with margarine. So you don’t necessarily need more expensive substitutes. Eggs can simply be left out, and the other classic ingredients for cookies are often plant-based anyway.