Vegan Shortbread Cookies. A Valentines Treat That Everyone Loves

Hello Lovers! Today is Valentines Day and I decided to make these colourful heart shaped Vegan shortbread cookies. I don't bake sweets too often because of my insane sugar addiction (seriously these will be gone by tomorrow in house!) but I can honestly say that I will bake these again. They are super easy to make and use very little ingredients. In fact I bet you already have the ingredients in your pantry: Flour, sugar, vegan butter, vanilla extract & plant milk. Too easy! The shortbread is perfectly crumbly & sweet, and I love that you could decorate these to suit any occasion!

Recipe Tips & Tricks

The first step of this recipe is to make the vegan shortbread cookie dough. 

Vegan Shortbread Cookie Dough

The recipe is in full below, but some additional tips for the vegan shortbread cookies:

1. Make sure to soften the butter first before creaming
2. Sift the flour
3. You can use gluten free flour
4. You can leave the dough overnight in the fridge. This is what I do
5. Make sure to wrap the dough well when cooling in the fridge
6. When rolling our your dough, just use a clean bench top with some flour to stop the dough sticking
7. When using the cookie cutter, use a pulling motion to get the heart dough stuck in the mould
8. Make sure they don't burn! I prefer these to be a little bit undercooked to keep them looking cleaner

Vegan Shortbread Cookie Icing

As usual, the full recipe is below, but some tips & tricks:

1. Make the icing very thick, such that it is just running off the spoon when you lift it. This makes it easy to "paint" onto the cookie top
2. I like to use my fingers or a mini spatula for the icing 
3. Don't add the icing to the cookies until they are completely cooled

Looking for more yummy Vegan desserts? Why not check out my Vegan Macadamia Slice! . You won't regret it!

Valentines Shortbread Cookies

Georgia Papas

Heart shaped Vegan shortbread topped with a hard icing top

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 12 minutes mins

Refrigerate time 2 hours hrs

Course Dessert

Cuisine Vegan Dessert

Servings 12 people (about 20 cookies)

Calories 140 kcal

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

Shortbread Cookies

• 150 grams Vegan butter I use Nuttlex
• 60 grams caster sugar
• 200 grams plain flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Hard Icing Top

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tablespoon plant based milk I use almond milk
• food colouring I use ¼ teaspoon of beetroot powder
• coloured sugar pearls I use light pink & white

Instructions

 

Shortbread Cookie Dough

• Pre heat oven to 180°C or 350F
• In a mixing bowl, add 150 grams of vegan butter (I used nuttlex), 60 grams of fine sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Cream with a hand held mixer
• Add 200 grams of plain flour (you can also use gluten free) and mix into a dough 
• Wrap and leave in the refrigerator for 2+ hours 
• Remove from the fridge, sprinkle your bench top with flour, and roll out to 1cm
• Cut into heart shapes!
• Transfer to a lined baking tray and bake for 12 to 14 minutes
• Let the cookies completely cool before adding the icing

Cookie Icing

• Add 1 cup of icing sugar, ½ teaspoon vanilla extract and 1 tablespoon of almond milk to a bowl 
• Whisk until a smooth icing forms. Add more sugar to make it thicker, or more almond milk to make it thin 
• Use this icing as it is for the white based cookies
• Add food colouring! I actually used ½ a teaspoon of beetroot powder to get the pink colour! 
• Decorate with sugar pearls
• Leave the cookies for about 1 hour for the icing to cool and harden

Notes

I like to make the icing super thick and then use my fingers, or a mini spatula to cover the cookie 

Nutrition

Calories: 140kcal

Keyword Valentines Cookies, Vegan Shortbread Cookies

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!