Published: July 21, 2015

These delicious, buttery shortbread biscuits are so easy to make. Too easy, in fact.

It’s always too tempting to quickly whip up a batch of these to have “just a few” to nibble on and inevitably eat the entire lot to yourself… because it’s impossible to have “just a few”. 

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How to make the perfect Vegan Shortbread Cookies

Use a good-tasting vegan butter

I recommend Naturli or Earth Balance Buttery, if you want that classic buttery flavour.

Cream the fat and sugar well

The first step of the recipe is to cream the vegan spread with the sugar and it’s an important one. The longer you can mix them together for, the better. I usually aim for about 5 minutes but you can increase that for up to 10 minutes if you have a stand mixer.

Chilling the dough

This part is important for a couple of reasons.

First, so that the dough becomes workable and doesn’t lose it’s shape.

Second, so the fat firms up and doesn’t melt too quickly in the oven. This part really affects the overall texture and shape.

Tip: You can try chilling the dough twice, for the perfect outcome. Once before you cut out your shapes and then again after the shapes are cut.

Baking at a lower temperature

As mentioned above, we don’t want the vegan butter to melt too quickly in the oven, resulting in misshapen and tough cookies.

I recommend 160 C (320 F) or 140 C Fan. However, you may need to increase the temperature, depending on your oven.

Decoration

I like to just cut into circle shapes and dust with some icing sugar but you can cut these into any shapes, just making sure they are not too thick or thin.

For the classic shortbread look, you can also poke holes into the top, with a fork. This actually helps the cookies bake more evenly too!

And if you want to go the full hog and decorate these with icing, I recommend my vegan royal icing which is easy to pipe and has the perfect finish.

Flavouring

Chocolate shortbread – Add 20g of cocoa and reduce the flour to 270g (thank you to Katy for sharing this tip)

Lemon – Add 2 tablespoons finely-grated lemon zest to the dough.

Lavender – Add 1 1/2 teaspoons dried lavender to the dough.

Chocolate Chip – See my recipe here.

To decorate these cookies:

Vegan Royal Icing

Use these shortbread cookies to make:

Vegan Strawberry Shortbread Ice Cream

If you enjoy this recipe, let me know in the comments, leave a rating or tag #WallflowerKitchen on Instagram so I can share your creation on my stories!