I’m so happy to have connected with Kim (and Hector!) from Our Fresh Kitchen through Food Bloggers of Canada! Their bright, beautiful site is dedicated on helping everyone eat healthy and uncomplicated food that still tastes great. Since I’ve had to really work on eating healthy in the past year, their recipes are an inspiration for me – healthy food can still be full of flavour!
Just take a look at these beautiful vegan chai shortbreads they shared for the Cookie Recipe Advent Calendar!
guest post by Kim Osborne from Our Fresh Kitchen
Although my family has lived in Canada for generations, there are a few Scottish traditions that have stuck around; shortbread is one of my favourite cookies at any time of year, and it’s one of at least five different kinds of cookies which find their way to the dessert table at Christmas dinner.
I’ve always loved finding new ways to try traditional baking, and the idea of chai tea shortbread (originally discovered on The Kitchn) is just so lovely. Chai tea is a spicy addition to the soft and chewy buttery goodness of freshly homemade shortbread, and always makes me think of warm tea in front of a fireplace. But with dairy allergies in my family, what is a butter-less baker to do?
Well, make a diary-free (and vegan) shortbread of course!
I figured I couldn’t possibly be the first one to think of making butter-free shortbread, and I was right: Wing It Vegan has a recipe using coconut oil, which looks absolutely stunning. Since shortbread doesn’t have any eggs in it, taking the butter out makes it vegan as well as dairy-free.
Now if you’re anything like me, your first thought about coconut oil was probably “but won’t my baking taste like coconut?”
I’ll be honest: it’s entirely possible that it will, but that’s not a bad thing. There are two types of coconut oil: unrefined oil tastes like coconut, and refines oil doesn’t (it doesn’t really taste like anything, so it’s great in baking).
When making these cookies I SWORE I had another jar of coconut oil in the cupboard, but it walked away and hid somewhere so I had to go to the grocery store around the corner which only sells unrefined coconut oil. My preference would be to use refined oil in this recipe so the chai taste really shines, but I didn’t hear any complaints about the coconut taste in the ones I made!
This recipe also makes a great hostess or Christmas gift – just wrap the dough log in tissue paper, tie the ends with a bow, and add a card with baking instructions!
- 1/2 cup refined coconut oil, softened
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- Two chai tea bags
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom, optional
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, optional
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons water
- In a medium sized bowl, use a whisk to whip the coconut oil until it’s smooth and creamy, then add the sugar and vanilla extract and blend everything together well.
- In a separate bowl, combine the all-purpose flour with the contents of the two tea bags, as well as the cardamom, cinnamon and salt; the cinnamon and cardamom are optional, but they really bring out the flavour of the tea. For a smoother cookie, use a blender to chop the tea mix before adding it to the flour.
- Add the flour mixture to the coconut oil mixture and stir as much as you can (it won’t combine completely). Add about 2 tablespoons of cold water, enough to make a solid cookie dough, and finish mixing with your hands or with a pastry cutter.
- Roll the dough into a log about 4cm/1.5 inches in diameter, wrap it in plastic wrap and chill it for about half an hour. If you leave it longer than that you may have to let it warm up a little before cutting the cookies to keep the dough from breaking.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with a baking mat (or parchment paper).
- Use a sharp knife to cut the log into about 1 cm or 1/3 inch slices, and lay them on the cookie sheet about half an inch apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the cookies are just barely brown around the edges (longer if you want crispy cookies).
- Let the cookies cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet so they set up a little, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely. Sample one to make sure they taste good.
Check out the rest of the Cookie Recipe Advent Calendar here!
The content, recipe and all photos used in this blog post belong to Kim Osborne / Our Fresh Kitchen and were used with her permission. Please do not reprint any of the content in this post without her express permission.
