Vegan Christmas Cookies
Sweet, crispy, and festive, these tasty Vegan Christmas Cookies are the perfect sweet treat to add to your Christmas menu. Impress your guests with these delicious cookies, and customize them using cookie cutters, icing, and sprinkles. Serve with hot cocoa, eggnog, tea, or mulled wine.
Jump to:
Christmas is upon us, and if you are anything like me, you are probably putting together a Christmas menu that will dazzle your friends and family. I have a few vegan guests this year, so I created some sweet treats for them to enjoy.
This vegan Christmas cookie recipe has it all: the perfect balance of festive flavors and beautifully decorated cookies. However, if you are short on time, you can go plain and dust them with icing sugar or get creative, as I did, and decorate them with icing sugar to add that extra personalized touch.
Serve these lovely vegan cookies with Lemon Ginger Cinnamon Tea, Homemade Hot Chocolate Recipe, or warm milk, depending on your preference, and watch them disappear in seconds!
Why You Should Try This Recipe
- These vegan Christmas cookies are fun to make and decorate.
- This festive snack can be served on a cookie spread with Double Chocolate Chip Cookies without Brown Sugar and Chewy Double Chocolate Chip Cookies.
- You can use different types of cookie cutters, depending on your preference.
- Double or triple the recipe to feed more people.
Vegan Christmas Cookies Ingredients
- Sunflower/vegetable oil: This will help the cookies to bake and add moisture.
- Coconut milk: I used coconut milk for this recipe, but you can use any other plant-based milk of your choice.
- Applesauce: Add shop-bought or homemade applesauce to this recipe to add sweetness to the cookies.
- Vanilla extract: This will also add sweetness to the cookies.
- Lemon zest: Don't skip the lemon zest! This adds delicious citrusy notes to the vegan Christmas cookies, making them simply addictive.
- Ground cinnamon: Adds a sweet, spicy, and woody flavor perfect for the festive season.
- Plain flour and Whole grain flour: Make up most of the cookie dough.
- Sugar: For sweetness.
- Baking powder: This is a leavening agent that helps the cookies to rise while baking.
- Pinch of salt: Balances out the flavors in the cookies.
For glaze
- Lemon juice: To add more citrusy flavors.
- Powdered sugar: For the icing.
- Food coloring: To add make beautiful festive colors for the cookies.
- Cookie Decorations: Extra edible decorations like sprinkles.
Tips and Substitutions
- Dough: Do not knead the dough too much, as this will result in a tough cookie. Make sure the dough is not too wet or dry, as this will also affect the texture of the cookie.
- Decoration: Get creative and decorate these cookies with different colors. If you have little ones, then decorating these cookies is a fun activity for them to enjoy! For example, ice the Christmas trees with green icing and add sprinkles!
- Soft VS Thin Cookies: There is no right or wrong way to make these cookies it just depends on your preference. For example, if you like soft cookies, the dough should be quite quick after rolling. However, if you want crunchy biscuits, roll them into thin dough.
How to Make Vegan Christmas Cookies
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Combine the wet ingredients. Pour the oil, vanilla extract, and coconut milk into a deep bowl, and add the applesauce. Whisk the ingredients until smooth.
TIP: You can buy ready-made applesauce or cook it yourself. Peel two small apples, cut them into pieces, and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes or in the microwave for 7 minutes. Then, the soft apple can be chopped with a blender or mashed with a fork.
2. Next, grab a separate bowl and combine the plain flour, whole grain flour, cinnamon powder, baking powder, sugar, salt, and lemon zest. Then, stir with a spoon until well combined.
3. Combine the liquid ingredients with dry ingredients. Eventually, you should be able to form a ball of dough. The dough should be relatively soft and sticky.
4. Grease a table or cutting board with oil or flour so that the dough does not stick to it when rolling. Then, depending on how much space you have, cut ¼ or ½ of the dough and use a rolling pin to flatten it. If you want the biscuits to be crispy and crumbly, roll the dough thinly. However, if you prefer softer cookies, make sure the dough is thicker after rolling.
Once the dough has been rolled, use cookie cutters to cut the cookies into festive shapes. If you do not have cookie cutters, you can use tracing paper and cut out shapes carefully using a knife or cut the cookies into circular shapes using a cup.
5. Transfer the cookie dough to a baking mat, baking sheet or baking tray lined with baking paper. Then, place the baking sheet in a hot oven and bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes.
6. While the cookies are baking, make the frosting. Mix lemon juice and icing sugar until smooth. Set aside for later.
7. Let the cookies cool slightly, then make fun patterns using a pastry bag. I have done stars, reindeer, Christmas trees and more! Do not decorate the cookies when hot as the icing sugar will melt.
TIP: The dough is not too sweet, so the icing combination balances out the flavors perfectly.
8. Finally, serve these tasty and aromatic Vegan Christmas Cookies with vegan eggnog, tea, Christmas White Hot Chocolate with Baileys and more!
Recipe FAQs
Vegan Christmas cookies do not contain animal products, which makes them a great snack option for vegans during Christmas. To make these cookies extra special, use Christmas cookie cutters, icing, and sprinkles. Vegan cookies are typically made with plant-based milk, flour, sugar, and leavening agents. You can also add other ingredients such as lemon zest, orange zest, or lavender to enhance the flavors of the cookies.
There are lots of different cookies associated with Christmas. Some popular favorites include chocolate chip cookies, gingerbread, sugar cookies, peanut butter blossoms and more.
Vegan Christmas cookies must be fully cool before storing. Store them in an airtight jar or container at room temperature for two to three weeks. Alternatively, they can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to two months.
More Delicious Cookie Recipes
Vegan Christmas Cookies
Equipment
- 1 Mixing bowls
- 1 Rolling Pin
- 1 Cookie cutters or cup
- 1 baking tray
Ingredients
- 5 tablespoon of sunflower/vegetable oil
- 4 tablespoon Coconut milk
- â…“ cup Applesauce
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoon Lemon zest
- ½ teaspoon Ground cinnamon
- ½ cup Wheat flour
- ½ cup Whole grain flour
- 3 tablespoon Sugar
- 1 teaspoon Baking powder
- 1 pinch of salt
For glaze
- 3 tablespoon of lemon juice
- 75 g Powdered sugar
- ½ teaspoon Food coloring
- Cookie Decorations
Instructions
- Preheat oven at 180C/350F. Pour oil, vanilla extract, coconut (or almond) milk into a deep bowl, and add the applesauce. NOTE: You can buy applesauce ready-made or cook it yourself - peel two small apples, cut into pieces and bake in the oven (10-15 minutes) or in the microwave (7 minutes). Then the soft apple can be chopped with a blender or mash with a fork.
- Whisk the ingredients in a bowl until smooth.
- In another bowl, combine two flours, cinnamon powder, baking powder, sugar, salt, and lemon zest. Stir with a spoon.
- Combine liquid ingredients with dry ingredients. Stir the ingredients until you have a relatively soft dough.
- Grease the table or cutting board with oil or flour so that the dough does not stick. Cut a small piece and roll it on the board. Use cookie cutters. If you want to make cookies other than Christmas, you can use a glass or a cup to make round cookies. If you want the biscuits to be crispy and crumbly, then roll the dough thinly. Thicker cookies will be soft on the inside and crunchy around the edges.
- Transfer the dough to a baking mat or baking sheet lined with baking paper. Place the baking sheet in a hot oven. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes.
- While the cookies are baking, make the frosting. Mix lemon juice and icing sugar until smooth.
- Let the cookies cool slightly, then make the patterns using a pastry bag. Enjoy!
Notes
- Dough: Do not knead the dough too much as this will result in a tough cookie. Make sure the dough is not too wet or dry as this will also affect the texture of the cookie.
- Decoration: Get creative and decorate these cookies with different colors. If you have little ones then decorating these cookies is a fun activity for them to enjoy! For example, ice the Christmas trees with green icing and add sprinkles!
- Soft VS Thin Cookies: There is no right or wrong way to make these cookies it just depends on your preference. For example, if you like soft cookies then the dough should be quite quick after rolling. However, if you want crunchy biscuits then roll a thin dough.
- Storage: Vegan Christmas cookies must be fully cool before storing. Store them in an airtight jar or container at room temperature for two to three weeks. Alternatively, they can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to two months.
