Vegan shortbread

I’ve worked hard to capture as “buttery” a taste and texture as possible whilst ensuring these lovely biscuits are 100% vegan.

Tips

• The dough is very pliable once mixed, but don’t worry the biscuits don’t spread much at all
• If you don’t have a fancy biscuit mould, you can use the bottom of a textured drinking glass or a corzetti pasta mould. Alternatively, just leave them plain
• There’s no need to rub in, as you would with butter or margarine
• Exceptionally simple to make

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 12 minutes

Makes: about 20 x 5cm diameter biscuits

Equipment

• Scales
• Large bowl
• Baking sheet, lined with baking paper
• Rolling pin
• 5cm biscuit cutter
• Palette knife
• Biscuit mould/patterned glass/corzetti mould – optional

Ingredients

• 40g ground almonds
• 250g plain flour
• 75g caster sugar
• 35g cornflour
• 120ml light olive oil, I used Filippo Berry Mild & Light (please don’t substitute anything with a strong flavour)
• Salt: a pinch
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla powder or the seeds from 1/2 vanilla pod
• Extra flour and caster sugar for dusting

Method

1. Warm your oven to 180C and prepare a baking tray with baking paper
2. Weigh out all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix, bringing the dough together
3. Liberally flour your work surface and your rolling pin
4. Roll out the dough to about 7-8mm and cut out roundels. The dough is quite soft, so lift the biscuits with the palette knife to stop them becoming misshapen
5. Place on the prepared baking tray, about 1-2 cm apart
6. Keep re-rolling the dough and cutting out biscuits until all the dough is used
7. Using your mould, press each biscuit lightly to get an impression
8. Dust the biscuits with a little of the extra caster sugar
9. Bake for twelve minutes. The biscuits will still look fairly pale and will still be slightly soft
10. Leave to cool in the tray. Cooling can be sped up by transferring to a wire rack after 15 minutes in the tray

Advertisement