This post for Perfect Vegan Sugar Cookies is sponsored by Jord Wood Watches, who I love for their super stylish Watches Made From Wood!
How neat are they!?
Now that I have completed all of my Christmas shopping, it is time to get holly and jolly up in this house! Introducing The Perfect Vegan Sugar Cookies.
These sugar cookies are a balance of a cut-out cookie awesomeness and totally tasty soft buttery cookie. They work beautifully if you want to attempt detailed snowflake cookie cutters or just kid friendly Christmas cookie cutters. If it’s not the holiday season, you can use any cookie cutter to create whatever shape you like, making them perfect vegan sugar cookie for any time of year!
Isn’t that watch neat? It was pretty fun receiving this early Christmas gift in the mail. There is something so vintage cool about wearing a watch that I am totally into right now.
If you are digging the look of this watch it’s your lucky day, because Jord was kind enough to offer my readers an exclusive giveaway for a chance to win $75 e-gift code to the shop, and will be automatically selected and emailed. Yes, that’s cool, but the coolest part (in my opinion) is that all entrants receive a $20 e-gift code automatically emailed to them just for entering. Woot!
To enter the Jord Wood Watch $75 Giveaway: click here and complete the instructions. The contest closes on 12/18.
Back to cookies.
What I love most about these vegan sugar cookies is that they are not only great for cookie cutters, but they actually taste good. I find so many cut-out cookies are just hard and flavourless. The key that I learned from Sally’s Baking Addiction is to use both vanilla extract and almond extract to really enhance the flavours. The result is sweet, light, soft, buttery, and totally addictive (Sally was right about that addiction thing).
So let’s get to making them! Whisk together all of the dry ingredients.
Mix together the chia or flax with the water in a small bowl and let thicken. Then add that along with the remaining wet ingredients to a bowl, and beat the wet ingredients together until they are soft and fluffy.
Then add the wet into dry and mix until a dough is formed.
I used Earth Balance, but I have found that sometimes the moisture levels in vegan butters are different, so if your dough does not come together, add up to 1 tablespoon of water until the dough just comes together.
Collect the dough into a ball, and place it between two sheets of parchment paper. Roll the dough out until it’s 1/4 inch thick. Put the parchment covered dough on a tray and pop it in the freezer for 15 minutes, or in the fridge for 30 minutes. This cools the dough, so the cookies are easy to cut out, and they will hold their shape in the oven.
Once cooled, remove the top piece of parchment and cut out your cookies. Re-roll the remaining dough and cut out more cookies, cooling the dough if needed. Bake the cookies until just lightly golden underneath. Let cool completely before icing.
To make the icing, mix together the powdered sugar and 2 teaspoons of non-dairy milk. Add more milk as needed until desired consistency is reached. Add in vegan food colouring as desired.
Use a piping bag or a plastic bag with the corner cut off to decorate your cookies as you like! Have fun 🙂
TIP 1: For extra white frosting, I find full-fat coconut milk works best.
TIP 2: The icing recipe makes enough to lightly decorate the cookies, if you want to heavily decorate them (like I did), double the recipe.
TIP 3: Try not to eat them all before you finished icing them!
Voila! The Perfect Vegan Sugar Cookies.
Lightly adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction: Soft Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoons ground chia or ground flax
- 3 tablespoons water
- 3/4 cup vegan butter
- 3/4 cups white sugar
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2-4 teaspoons non-dairy milk or Wwater
- A few drops of food colouring (optional)
- To make the cookies: Preheat oven to 350F (180C).
In a large bowl mix together all the dry ingredients.
In a small bowl, mix together the flax or chia, and the water and set aside to thicken which will be almost instant if using chia, but take about 10 minutes if using flax.
In a third bowl beat the vegan butter and sugar together until creamy, about 3 minutes. Add the remaining wet ingredients including the flax or chia mixture, and mix well. Add the wet mixture into dry and combine until a dough is formed. I used Earth Balance vegan butter, but I have found that sometimes the moisture levels in vegan butters are different, so if your dough does not come together, add up to 1 tablespoon of water until the dough just comes together.
- Put the dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll it out to about 1/4 inch thick. Now pop it onto a baking tray and chill the rolled dough in the freezer for 15 minutes or in the fridge for 30 minutes. Once chilled, cut your cookie shapes and lay them on the parchment lined cookie sheet. Re-roll remaining dough until it’s all used up, chilling in between if needed. Bake 8 - 11 minutes.
- To make the icing: Add the powdered sugar, 2 teaspoons of non-dairy milk or water, and food colouring if using, to a bowl. Mix together. Add 1 to 2 teaspoons more non-dairy milk or water if needed to reach desired consistency. Let cookies cool completely before decorating.
Bon Appetegan!
Sam.
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Hi! I just tried these but they were a little crispy. Are they supposed to be? I’ve made the non-vegan recipe and they weren’t crispy. These tasted delicious!
Thanks!
Hi Pareeta, they should be crispy on the outside and chewy in the middle. There are lots of different versions of sugar cookies. I will add a not to make soft sugar cookies this upcoming winter season 🙂
Could I use egg replacer instead of the chia or flax?
I haven’t tried it myself, but it should work just fine 🙂
Does the batter need to be chilled, or can that be skipped? How influential is that step in the overall process?
I clicked too soon; I meant to rate the recipe 5 stars. They looks so good!
And thanks for the rating 🙂
You roll out the dough between parchment paper then chill it in the fridge before using the cookie cutters. Enjoy!
Hey! We did these as a last minute thing and they were given to seven non-vegans who all loved them, complimented them, and didn’t have the faintest idea they were vegan. I really appreciate your clear instructions and the simplicity of the recipe–the first couple Google results wanted to sub in a whole bunch of stuff (pumpkin???) that isn’t in regular sugar cookies, but this was really perfect and exactly what I was hoping to find! Thank you so much!
Yay!!! Thrilled everyone loved them 🙂 Yes, I try to keep my recipes as simple as possible with easy for find ingredients and no weird stuff. Haha. So happy you appreciated that!
What type of nondairy milk do you recommend do you recommend unsweetened nondairy milk? Would sweetened nondairy milk be ok? I am considering using soy milk. Thoughts?
I am looking forward to making these with our daughters. We have a cookie baking tradition for Christmas Eve.
Please reply ASAP as I am shopping today.
Unsweetened. While sweetened may work it would make the cookies sweeter than intended. My go to is Silk Unsweetened Soy Milk. I hope you and your daughter enjoy them!
I really enjoy your fun ideas and recipes, but it is a little off-putting to see adds for Oscar Meyer bacon and other meats pop up while on a vegan site.
Hi Maggie, glad you enjoy my site! When it comes to ads, I do have blocks on animal-product ads but sometimes they manage to sneak through. It’s difficult to catch the ones that sneak through because everyone sees different ads depending on their device, location and search history. I put in a notice to block Oscar Meyer ads to my ad manager, and if any other offensive ads come up, please feel free to contact me and send me the link the ad takes you to when clicked so I can have it properly blocked. Thanks!
These look delicious! And the perfect little intro to vegan goodies for my family this holiday season. And that watch? GORGEOUS!
I know right? I thought the watch was so cute. 🙂 I hope you and your fam enjoy them!
Oh Sam! These are great. I’m saving it for next year. You’re amazing with a plastic baggie and some icing. I’ve never gotten such vibrant colors out of natural food coloring. I’ll check out yours.
Haha well thank you Bethery. The colours I used weren’t labled as natural, but they just happened to be vegan. I couldn’t find them on Amazon, but I wanted to link to a vegan food colouring to help people find something suitable. Also, I worked as a paint colour mixer at one point in my life, so mixing colours is a bit of a skill I have. None of these colours came straight from the bottle like that… a little bit of colour sorcery was involved! Muhahahaaha.
Holy schmoly, I bought the one you linked to at our Co-op, but I’ll try my best with it. You’re a wicked colorist. Hahaha.
Haha thank you 🙂
Do you think it would be possible to do this recipe with just a whisk since I don’t have a mixer or hand beater?
Yes! You might just want to let the vegan butter soften at room temperature for a bit so it’s easier to beat together. Softened, not melted! Enjoy!
These turned out great thanks for the recipe. Rolled out well and cut out well. I made some for my son’s first birthday and will make more next week for Christmas!
That was fast! So happy you loved them Wendy 🙂
Do you think bobs red mill 1to1 would translate well in this recipe?
Hi Mariana,
I’ve heard good things about Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1, but never actually tried baking with it myself, so I’m not sure. That said these cookies are fairly simple, so I would think it would likely work. If you give it a go, let us know how it works for you 🙂
Does the icing go hard?
Not rock solid, but yes it hardens. 🙂
Hi Sam!
The “groud flax” and “chia” are supposed to be seeds or more like grinded? I can’t wait to try this recipe :p
Thanks, you’re awesome 😀
The seeds that are then ground. White chia is my preference (just because it gels faster), and you can either grind it yourself or buy it pre-ground, like here on amazon. 🙂
Awwwww…more sugar! I’m sure it’s possible to be a vegan without stuffing your food full of sugar, but maybe not here.
Well written, good photography, but the recipes always seem full of sugar, even the “savoury” ones.. Bad news for health. Maybe think about The health risks? DIabetes? Major killer.
Hi Lynne,
There are lots of health-focused vegan recipe blogs, but that’s not the focus of this blog. I just like to make scrumptious recipes that are just like the original animal product based recipes… except better!
SOOOOO gorgeous. You make everything look easy. It is except for the amazing creativity. How about those chocolate and vanilla square cookies you once made!
Haha, I guess the art degrees paid off. Haha, I’ll keep those in mind 🙂
Just in the nick of time! I just bought a giant assortment of cookie cutters and a triple tray of cookie racks to bake up some Christmas cookie goodness with my son – hopefully this weekend.
Thank you! I really look forward to making them with the vanilla and almond extracts.
Yay! Perfect. I really hope you enjoy them 🙂