These little vegan snowball cookies are really simple to make. They are the lightest of shortbread biscuits, and the perfect counterpoint to all the rich spiced cakes and cookies that are around at Christmas.
The snowy finish is achieved with a two-stage icing process, which takes minutes and ensures that the icing sugar stays (almost entirely) in place, instead of falling all over your clothes.
Unfrosted, these cookies look a bit like amaretti biscuits, with a lightly cracked surface. Also like amaretti, and all those other Italian cookies that rely on egg-whites, they are supremely light. The ratio of raising agent to flour and almonds in the recipe is fairly precise to achieve that lightness without deeply creviced cookies.
Lemon zest is included as an option. It’s purely a matter of taste – plain vanilla and lemon are equally lovely.
The quantities here will make thirty biscuits roughly 3.5 cm in diameter, that would very happily share a plate with these little vegan lebkuchen…
…or these gluten-free chocolate hazelnut macaron cookies.
vegan snowball cookies…
ingredients
- 55 g coconut oil (preferably the unflavoured variety)
- 55 g soft vegan margarine
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 70 g icing (confectioner’s) sugar
- 180 g plain white/unbleached flour
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 50 g ground almonds
- optional – finely grated zest of a medium lemon
for the snowy icing
100 g icing (confectioner’s) sugar
method
- Set the oven to 180°C/360°F and line enough baking sheets for thirty cookies roughly 3.5 cm in diameter.
- In a medium-large bowl, melt the coconut oil until it is completely transparent and warm but not boiling hot. (The coconut oil must be fully melted and warm for the dough to hold together when it is rolled into balls.)
- Add the margarine and 70 g icing sugar to the coconut oil and whisk with an electric hand-whisk to form a runny buttercream mixture.
- Add the vanilla and whisk a little further.
- Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture, then add the ground almonds (and lemon zest if you are making lemon cookies). Stir gently until it has come together as a fairly short, somewhat crumbly dough.
- Don’t leave the dough to cool or it will be too crumbly to shape. Take small spoonfuls and roll carefully in your palm to create around thirty little balls no more than 2.5 cm across. Place them on the trays – there is no need to flatten them, them will expand into dome shaped cookies in the oven.
- Bake for ten to twelve minutes, until they are just starting to turn a little golden at the edges.
- Allow the cookies to cool completely before icing.
- Reserve around three tablespoons of the icing sugar and mix the rest with 2 to 3 tsp of water to form a thick glace icing. Add another drop or two of water if it is too thick to transfer to the cookies.
- Use a pastry brush, or similar, to paint each cookie with a layer of the icing, then dredge the whole lot with the reserved icing sugar using a fine sieve.
- Leave them to settle, and the icing sugar to bond to the damp icing and set, before transferring to a plate. They will store well for a few days in a suitable, fairly airtight, container.
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