Ohhhh these puppies… these beautiful, melt in your mouth, authentic gorgeous shorbreads… Simple, and crave-worthy. I have two secrets for these – for the very best version possible, I use virign coconut oil and maple sugar. Now, if you can’t just skip on over to your local cabane a sucre or to the Byward Market in Ottawa, I do feel your pain because maple sugar is quite a phenomenal treat. But hey, its ok. Use brown sugar or cane sugar, or sucanat, and you’re good to go.
If you find palm oil is a more afffordable option than virgin coconut oil, cool, just bake them longer. You won’t get the same mouth-melt texture but it will still be a great cookie. If you can do dairy, use butter. And for the millet flour- it seems hard to find these days, you can always substitute amaranth flour.
Now! On to the glorious shorbread!! As you can see in the picture, I’ve rolled mine in chopped roasted pecans and topped them with home made jam. Um. Thats pretty darn delicious. I’d say its totally worth trying :)
Note: If you’re looking for more gluten free holiday cookies, check out my Gluten Free Vegan Molasses Gingersnaps, Gluten Free Vegan Gingerbread Cookies, and Gluten/Dairy/Egg Free Pumpkin Spice Cookies.
MyRealFoodLife.com
Gluten Free Vegan Shortbread
Shortbread needs to be baked in a slow oven (cooler oven), so that it doesn’t burn. Rolling out the dough results in a stiffer cookie. Rolling them into smaller balls and putting a thumbprint of jam in them makes a melt-in-your-mouth authentic cookie, which I personally love. See substitutions below for help switching ingredients.
Dry Ingredients
- ½ + 1/3 cup tapioca starch
- 1/4 cup millet flour
- ¼ cup white rice flour
- 1 cup roasted and chopped pecans (nut free: omit)
- ½ + 1/3 cup sweet rice flour
- 1/8 tsp celtic sea salt
Wet Ingredients
- ¾ cup virgin coconut oil (nut free: use palm oil)
- 1/4 cup maple sugar, ¼ cup agave (non vegan: honey or substitutions listed below)
- 2 tsp vanilla
- ½ cup raspberry jam
Directions
1. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, and then sift.
2. Mash the oil into the dry ingredients so that it’s the consistency of tiny crumbs (pulse in a blender or use a fork or pastry cutter).
3. Melt the honey or agave gently (don’t let it get hot) and then add the vanilla. Mix thoroughly into the dry ingredients.
4. Shape the dough into a ball and let chill for 15-20 minutes or until solid.
5. Roll out the dough and cut shapes, or roll into small balls and coat in pecan crumbs. Press a mark with your finger into each ball and fill it with raspberry jam.
6. Bake at 300 degrees for 6-7 minutes or until solid. If you use palm oil, bake for 7- 10 minutes.
Substitutions:
Tapioca Starch: corn, arrowroot, or potato starch. Millet Flour: amaranth flour. Coconut oil: palm oil or butter. Maple sugar and agave: maple syrup, honey, sucanat, cane sugar, icing sugar, brown sugar or even coconut sap.
Hi there natalie!
Ok, so you may want to gently touch the cookies to see what they feel like- if they are firming up even slightly, then pull them out of the oven to cool. Once they are totally cool they should be hardened. Also, it may depend on the type of fat and sweetener you used- was it honey, agave, or coconut sugar? ( if honey or agave, you might find the dough may have had too much liquid and the cookies will spread alot and perhaps take longer to bake, in which case next batch you can add about 1/4 cup or so more of dry ingredients). For the fat, did you use coconut oil, palm oil, or other? Coconut oil seems to cook the fastest, palm oil cooks the slowest (ie it doesn’t really go golden and stays soft longer). Even if they seem a bit raw in the oven, pull them out and let them cool completely- sometimes its a matter of waiting to let them solidify once cool.
How did they turn out?
Hey, thanks for the recipe — I am in the process of making these right now! So far, the raw dough tastes amazing…so glad I get to sample this, such a nice perk of being egg-free!
My only concern is, the cookies have been baking in the oven for about an hour now. I keep checking on them but they still look super raw… any ideas on what could be causing this?
me too! i’m all shortbreaded out :D this mix of flours was great- it was so close to the real thing… the coconut oil gave that awesome melt in the mout hfeeling and they held together without any xanthan gum…(woot!). i must say though, secet ingredeint- maple sugar. we’ve got so many local guys selling syrup and maple sugar in the market i couldn’t resist. :D
One of my favorite cookies this year were shortbreads. I bet the mix of flours you used here created a lovely crumb to the cookies. Yum! :)