You might also like these recipes for vegan lemon shortbread cookies and vegan French shortbread cookies.
Making the perfect vegan shortbread cookie
Classic Scottish shortbread is Desi’s favorite cookie, so when I created this vegan shortbread cookie recipe, I wanted to make sure it was the best shortbread ever. Period. A good shortbread has to be perfectly buttery and perfectly tender. It should be a firm cookie to the touch, but when you bite into it, it should melt in your mouth. Here are my best tips for achieving that result:
Make sure the vegan butter is at room temperature because you want it to bind the flour – remember, there’s no liquid in this recipe. Beat the sugar and the butter until they’re thoroughly mixed. Once you add the flour, you want to keep any mixing to a minimum. Add the vanilla. While not a classic shortbread ingredient, I think it gives vegan shortbread – which is not made with real butter – more of a buttery flavor. After you add the flour to the butter-sugar-vanilla mixture, all at once, make sure you mix it with the paddle attachment of your stand mixer, or with a fork, for just a few seconds just until the dough comes together. Some crumbly bits remaining in the bowl are fine, you can gather them up by hand. DON’T roll out the shortbread dough. I cannot emphasize this enough. This is not a sugar cookie. Overhandling your dough will only result in the cookie getting tougher. Instead, press the dough into your pan using your fingers. Then lay a sheet of parchment on top of the pressed dough and gently smooth it to even the top. Don’t forget to prick your shortbread dough all over with a fork to help them bake evenly, and to give them a pretty, classic shortbread-y look. Bake the shortbread at a low temperature for a longer time. This recipe requires 35 minutes in the oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit. The shortbread bakes in one piece, like a cake, so be sure to cut it into individual cookies as soon as it comes out of the oven. If you wait too long, it will firm up and will be difficult to cut. Proceed to cool the cookies on a rack before eating.
Ingredients
Unbleached all-purpose flour (not whole wheat flour, not pastry flour, not cake flour). Vegan butter. Use butter sticks, homemade or store bought. Pure vanilla extract. Be sure to use the good stuff. Powdered (confectioners’) sugar. It’s critical to use powdered sugar in shortbread for the perfect texture. Granulated sugar does not have the time to melt and would also change the mouth-feel of the cookie.
You don’t need salt because I find that vegan butters tend to be salty, but if you have to add it, add no more than ¼ of a teaspoon. Check to get new recipe updates by email.
These are divine just plain, but if you want to dress them up, you can dip them in melted chocolate, sandwich some jam between two cookies, or even slather on icing.
More vegan cookie recipes
Recipe card
