Everyone needs a heart-shaped treat on Valentine's Day, and these vegan sugar cookies are both delicious and cute for your holiday.
Tender, buttery sugar cookies are made using simple ingredients like organic flour, virgin coconut oil, raw turbinado sugar and extras like and a hint of almond extract and citrus (flavors that really make these cookies memorable). Some vegan pink sprinkles and coconut glaze on top and you have a very sweet dessert platter to present to your beloved Valentine! Or anyone who you want to spread a little love and cheer to this week...
Sprinkles. I used Williams & Sonoma pink sprinkles. They are all natural. Bottle text: "Natural vegetable colorant" .. ingredients list beet juice - woo hoo!
Valentine's Day Heart Sugar Cookies. Almond-Coconut Oil.
vegan, makes 12 2-3 inch cookies
1 ½ cups white flour, organic
1 cup raw turbinado sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
⅓ - ½ cup virgin coconut oil, melted
3 tablespoon freshly squeezed citrus juice (I used tangerine)
¼ cup warm water
+ you will need additional white flour for rolling out cookie dough and handling
Coconut Glaze:
½ cup powdered sugar, organic
¼ cup virgin coconut oil, melted
pinch of salt
optional vegan sprinkles on top! pink. or red. (no sprinkles? try thinly sliced strawberries for color!)
tool: heart-shaped cookie cutter
notes:
* yes, you can substitute another variety of sugar, but I really enjoyed the raw turbinado sugar since it has a very caramel-y flavor.
* the almond extract is optional, but advised! If you need to, you can substitute with vanilla extract. Or a lemon or orange extract would be nice too!
Directions:
1. Combine the warm water with the coconut oil so that the oil melts into a very liquid state, a few soft clumps are OK.
2. Add in the salt, extracts, citrus juice and sugar.
3. Then start folding in the flour. Make sure your wet mixture is not hot when you do this. The warm water should be just warm enough to soften the coconut oil. Continue stirring until the mixture thickens to a very soft dough.
4. Transfer this soft dough to a small bowl and place in the fridge to chill for at least an hour. This will firm up the dough to a rollable state.
5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and pull dough from the fridge. Heavily flour your rolling surface and press out the dough with your fingers or a rolling pin. Slice out hearts and place on a greased baking sheet. Add sprinkles over top cookies.
6. Bake cookies at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, you want the edges to start to puff up and crisp out to look toasted and not doughy anymore. Slightly browned edges will give you a crisper cookie. I personally like my cookies a but more buttery than crispy, but the choice is yours for baking time.
7. Remove cookies from oven and allow to cool. This will firm up the cookies quite a bit since the coconut oil makes them very delicate upon removing from the oven.
8. While cookies are cooling, you can whisk together your glaze. Place in the freezer about five minutes to firm up a bit.
9. I drizzled the glaze over my cookies when they were still slightly warm and it melted quite a bit, but it still worked to attach the sprinkles! Add glaze and sprinkles over top and store in a covered container, at room temperature for up to 3 days. Longer, store in the freezer.
calorie estimate from caloriecount.com: 158 calories per cookie, 6g fat, 24 carbs, 2g protein. (12 cookies per recipe)
Happy Valentine's Day!
Want more: check out my "Pretty in Pink" Valentine's Day round-up on Babble.com Food!
Or try the always popular chocolate covered strawberry! -> recipe + exotic topping ideas.
Sara says
By the time I added the citrus juice, my coconut oil was no longer melted. I stirred as much as I could, but there are tons of chunks of oil throughout my batter. Maybe the recipe should have you add the melted oil and water mixture after all the other wet ingredients? Or did I somehow do something wrong? I still plan to bake them. I hope they turn out ok because I'm making them for a bake sale that is benefitting the humane society where I volunteer. I even have a cat cookie cutter I'm planning to use for the first time ever.
Kelley Pardo says
I tried spelt flour but it was way too sticky and loose
Kathy Patalsky says
For sticky dough you can always add a bit more flour to thicken and dry the texture
Jacqueline Frasca says
Make sure you're baking them on light pans, not dark non-stick ones. I've found that my pizza pans work best, actually. There's also enough oil in the recipe that you don't have to oil the pans--I promise they won't stick. Once I see the smallest touch of golden on the sides of them, not even all of them, I take them out and let them cool. I prefer chewier cookies.
Jacqueline Frasca says
I have made these probably ten times since last Valentine's Day because my coworkers love them so much, and every time I've used almond extract instead of citruses. So far, they are loving the lemon extract and lemon juice just as much, but really, try it with almond next time! These are a knock-out.
Jacqueline Frasca says
All organic sugars are vegan. Organic powdered sugar at Whole Foods--good to go.
mokshameg says
Is powdered sugar really vegan?? Lots of controversy. What is a substitute for this?
Kaitlin says
Made today, everyone loved them. Used lemon juice and were very lemony, but in a nice way. 🙂
Coralinda Carmela Lucia Bisign says
I'm not a baker but a cook. I wanted to ale a cookie to satisfy my sweet tooth but had limited ingredients. I made this cookie with orange extract with glaze and I must say they came out incredible!! The oranf flavor played off nicely from the coconut flavor. Will definitely keep for another sweet tooth day. 🙂
LiveWithCompassion says
These are a hit now in my house...made them twice. I mean..how can't ya love something sugary with sprinkles! They have a bit of a hard chewiness to them..if that makes sense... but they taste really good. I may have over-baked them a bit.
peace2mankind says
these look adorable! Can we please get you a show on one of the food networks?? People need to see your delicious and beautiful creations!
Crista Lash says
these look amazing. i pinned this recipe for the future!
Sydney Rosewood says
I made these and they were awesome! I didn't make the glaze, and I squeezed some grapefruit juice into them, delicious! 🙂
interjections says
I did the same with blood orange juice, they were fantastic!
Kathy Patalsky says
You could use vegan butter but reduce the salt greatly or omit it. I haven't tested this exact substitution, but it should work for you.
Liat Lem says
If I'm allergic to coconut, can I subsitute the coconut oil with something else?
stephi sky says
These look amazing!
emilialives says
I'm usually skeptical about vegan sugar cookies (after all, isn't the butter part of the point?) but these look delicious. I can't wait to try and make them!
Kathy Patalsky says
Thanks Kristina! Yes I really love coconut oil in cookies. The texture is so buttery and rich and I like the mild coconut labor from unrefined coco oil. Plus coconut oil has so many healthy qualities, so I don't mind indulging!
Sent from my iPad
Christina says
These look amazing! I love using coconut oil to bake with, it makes them so moist and flaky!
deneen says
As soon as I was done reading the recipe, I immediately went to my kitchen to whip up a batch of these gorgeous cookies. I made a few very minor tweaks - because I have a huge bowl of blood oranges, I used the juice in the cookie recipe, along with the zest (hate to waste that gorgeous zest). I also added some of the juice & zest to the glaze. Made the most amazing color!!
spabettie says
these look great! I have been using coconut oil in my standard cookie recipe lately, it's working pretty well! happy Valentines 🙂