Possible Allergy warning – please read all recipes carefully
and be aware of any allergies or sensitivities that may affect your health and well-being

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Possible Allergy warning – please read all recipes carefully
and be aware of any allergies or sensitivities that may affect your health and well-being

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Please Fave the original Here

Another holiday cookie treat from !

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Everyone is getting baking for Christmas. You thought it was going to be cheap, but you've used so much butter that Galen Weston Jr. is having more erotic dreams about your wallet than usual. Then you remember one teensy but critical detail: your niece is a vegan. What do?

Vegan recipes typically, uh... lack scientifically-informed substitution. This... doesn't. It may actually be an improvement on my prior improvement of the original 'family' recipe that was probably transcribed—poorly and with shocking gaps in critical information—from an unknown cookbook sometime in the 1960's-1980's. Let's curtail the biography with four important things you should understand about this recipe:

-Butter is mostly fat and water, not pure fat. Your substitution also needs water.
-When I say "powdered salt," I am absolutely serious. Either use a coffee grinder or invest in the inexpensive stone mortar and pestle that you don't think you have a valid excuse to own (it's going to seriously magnify your spice blend game anyways). If this isn't an option, then skip the salt; what the recipe gains from it will be lost in the grittiness.
-This dough is a bit of a crumbly beast to work with. The lack of well-developed gluten chains is what makes it shortbread instead of hard tack. Deal with it. If it won't hold a ball shape without falling apart, then add a little bit more water until it does.
-Use a pastry blender. Seriously.

The actual recipe:

Cream 1c coconut oil, 2Tbsp cold water, ¼c icing sugar, ½tsp vanilla extract, food colouring if desired.
Mix and add 2c flour (preferably, but not critically, cake & pastry flour), 2Tbsp corn starch, ½tsp powdered salt.
Form 1Tbsp portions into balls, and make indentations for a vegan filling of your choice or form around almonds or maraschino cherries if you are masochistic.
Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven on a parchment-lined sheet for 15-20 minutes, until barely starting to turn golden.
Cool, then dust with icing sugar if you're feeling fancy.