These vegan shortbread cookies are delicious and so tender they practically melt in your mouth. They're also super easy to make with only four ingredients!
- 1 cup vegan butter, room temperature (Note 1)
- ⅔ cup organic powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
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Place the butter into a large mixing bowl. Use an electric mixer at high speed to beat the butter until creamy, about 1 minute.
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Add the powdered sugar. Cream the powdered sugar and butter using the mixer at high-speed for about 2 minutes, until creamy and pale yellow in color. Add the vanilla and beat until fully incorporated into the mixture.
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Begin beating the flour into the mixture at low speed, adding it in 3 or 4 increments, beating each just until fully incorporated.
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Transfer the cookie dough to a lightly floured surface and use your hands to shape it into a rectangle measuring 3 inches wide, by 1 inch in height, by 8 inches long. (Note 2)
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Carefully wrap the dough tightly in plastic and place it in the refrigerator. Chill the dough for at least one hour and up to 4 days.
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Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper.
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Unwrap the cookie dough and cut it into about 24 slices. (Note 3)
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Arrange the slices on your baking sheets, separated by at least ½ inch. Optionally, use a chopstick to decorate the cookies by forming indentations in the tops. (Note 4)
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Bake the cookies just until you can see them starting to brown on the bottoms, 10 to 12 minutes.
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Remove the baking sheets from the oven and place them on cooling racks. Let the cookies cool for at least 10 minutes on the baking sheets before transferring them directly to the cooling racks to continue cooling.
- Most vegan butter is salted. If you happen to be using unsalted, add a pinch of salt to the recipe.
- If you prefer round shortbread cookies, roll the dough into a log, just under 2-inches in diameter.
- You can let the dough sit out for a few minutes if it's too hard to cut. Avoid letting it warm up too much though.
- If the dough has warmed up significantly while you were cutting and decorating the cookies, pop the baking sheets in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour before baking.