These vegan cut-out cookies make an amazing addition to a Christmas cookie box with other classic cookies like vanillekipferl, gingerbread men, molasses cookies, and Linzer cookies.
You can decorate them with naturally colored eggless royal icing with different shades of green, or add a pop of color with sprinkles, and gold leaf to resemble baubles and tinsel!
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📖 Why This Recipe Works
I've tested these cookies with various raising agents, baking times, and chilling methods to make sure that they give nice sharp edges when baked while remaining soft inside.
As shown in the image below, baking soda helped create neater cookies with sharper lines, while baking powder caused them to spread more and have cracks on the surface.
The baking soda also reacts with the acid in the yogurt to give you a delicious tangy flavor!
The dough is flash-frozen to help prevent it from spreading too much in the oven. But you can also chill it overnight for similar results.
Tip: Use these cookies to create a forest scene alongside my vegan gingerbread house for a beautiful festive edible display!
🧾 Ingredients Needed
Here's everything you need to make these festive vegan Christmas cookies from scratch:
Ingredient Notes
Find the complete list of ingredients, quantities, and instructions in the recipe card at the end of this post.
- Greek-Style Vegan Yogurt: Made using vegan yogurt as an egg replacer which gives them a beautifully soft consistency and slightly tangy flavor.
- Vegan Butter: Make sure you use vegan block butter (stick butter), not margarine from a tub. These products have completely different levels of water content and cannot be used interchangeably.
- Cornstarch: Helps keep the cookies tender and binds the dry and wet ingredients. This is often used as an egg substitute in vegan cookie recipes.
- Vanilla Bean Paste and almond extract add wonderful flavor to these vegan sugar cookies. You can sub in vanilla extract if needed.
🥣 Instructions
Here are step-by-step images showing how to make these easy vegan Christmas cookies. Please refer to the detailed printable recipe card at the end of this page for full measurements and written instructions:
Step 1: Cream the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl with a hand mixer or stand mixer until light and airy.
Step 2: Whisk in the vegan yogurt, followed by the vanilla and almond extract.
Step 3: Mix in the dry ingredients (flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt).
Step 4: Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, flatten it into a disc, and freeze for 2 hours (refrigerating overnight works great too).
Step 5: Roll out the dough to approximately ½ cm in height on a floured surface.
Step 6: Cut out the cookies using Christmas tree cookie cutters.
Step 7: Arrange the sugar cookies on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and bake in a preheated oven until lightly golden on the edges.
Step 8: Transfer the cookies from the baking sheet to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.
How to Ice Christmas Cookies
- Prep a batch of vegan royal icing in various colors as needed. Transfer the icing into a piping bag and snip off the end.
- Draw an outline on the outer edge of the cookie, this icing should be thick enough so that it doesn't run down the sides of the cookie.
- You can then "flood" the cookie using a more thinned-out icing, just add a little more aquafaba to the icing to make it a nice consistency that flows well without being translucent.
- Wait a couple of hours until the icing is dry to the touch before serving!
🎄 Variations
This easy vegan Christmas cookie recipe is the perfect base for you to put your own festive spin on. Here are some ideas:
- Switch up the shapes: You can use cookie cutters to create various fun shapes such as snowmen, hearts, snowflakes, candy canes, gift boxes, Santas, mittens, stars, or stockings.
- Different flavors: Swap the almond extract for peppermint extract or a teaspoon of freshly grated orange zest.
- Decorations: Alternate the toppings with melted dark chocolate or vegan white chocolate and crushed candy canes
- Spice cookies: Add a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, gingerbread spice or apple pie spice.
- Frosting: Pipe designs on top of the cookies using vegan buttercream.
💭 Recipe Tips
Dust your cookie cutters in flour. Keep a bowl with some flour on the side to coat the cutters before you use them. This will help prevent the dough from sticking!
Instead of Christmas tree cookie cutters, you can use festive cutters such as snowflakes, snowmen, Santas, or stars.
When using multiple colors of icing for your cookies, allow each color to dry to the touch before adding the next. This will prevent the colors from leaking into one another.
These vegan sugar cookies are perfect served with a cold glass of dairy-free eggnog!
💬 FAQs
Store them at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.
Freezing sugar cookies before baking helps to solidify the butter and creates incredibly fluffy baked cookies.
Freezing or chilling the cookie dough thoroughly will also help prevent them from spreading too much whilst baking, which is key for beautiful cut-out cookies!
🎁 More Christmas Cookie Recipes
📖 Recipe
Easy Cut-Out Vegan Sugar Cookies
Equipment
Ingredients
- 150 g (⅔ cups) vegan block butter room temperature, *see note 1
- 150 g (¾ cups) granulated sugar
- 30 g (1.5 tbsp) Greek-style vegan yogurt or thick coconut yogurt, I use Alpro Greek-style
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon almond extract optional
- 250 g (2 cups + 3 teaspoons) plain flour
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch (cornflour)
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- 1 batch vegan royal icing
- vegan dark chocolate optional, for garnish
- gold leaf sheets optional, for garnish
Instructions
- Make the cookie dough: Add the butter and sugar to a large bowl and use an electric whisk or stand mixer to whisk for 2-3 minutes until light and airy. Add the vegan yogurt and whisk again to combine. Whisk in the vanilla and almond extract until combined.
- Sift the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt into the bowl with the wet ingredients. Bring the mixture together with a rubber spatula to form a dough ball, wrap it in plastic wrap, flatten it into a disc, and place it in the freezer for 2 hours. Alternatively, you can refrigerate the dough overnight.
- Roll out the cookies: Preheat your oven to 175°C (350°F). Lightly flour your countertop and roll out the dough to approximately ½ cm in height. Keep a bowl with some flour on the side to coat the cookie cutters before cutting them out to help prevent the dough from sticking. Place the cookies on baking trays lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
- Bake: Bake for between 8-10 minutes until the cookies are very slightly browned at the edges, they will look underbaked and that's what you want. Allow the cookies to sit on the baking tray to cool for about 5 minutes. Next, carefully slide the sheet of parchment paper with the cookies off of the tray and onto a cooling rack. Cool for another 15-20 minutes until they reach room temperature.
- Ice the cookies: Make a batch of vegan royal icing and color to your taste as shown in the post. You can also melt a little dark chocolate to create a bark effect on your Christmas tree cookies.
- Transfer the icing to a piping bag. Snip the very tip of the bag with scissors and start by piping an outline on your cookies. If you wish to coat the cookies completely in royal icing you can flood the cookies by continuing to pipe inside the outlines with icing that is a little thinner consistency.Decorate with some gold leaf sheets (if using) to create a tinsel effect!
- Storage: Place the iced cookies back on a cooling rack to allow the icing to dry completely for a minimum of 1-2 hours before storing them in an airtight container at room temperature.They will last in a sealed container for around 2 weeks.
Notes
- Vegan butter: Take this out of the fridge to sit at room temperature for 30 mins to 1 hour. Use vegan block butter NOT spreadable butter from a tub. I use flora plant butter or Violife Block.
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