You may or may not have ever heard of an empire cookie, but let me just say you need these in your life at least once a year... probably more. Of course, the best time of year would be Christmas! These vegan empire cookies are total grandma cookies. Just classic and clean. Nothing over the top or gluttonous. They're a Scottish cookie (or biscuit) and I think they're rather sophisticated. I actually ate hoards of these as a kid on Christmas Day... because I was a sophisticated child, duh. My grandma used to make them every year but truthfully... these are better! Enjoy them with a warm mug of hot chocolate for an extra cozy holiday treat!
I can officially call these award-winning cookies too! These babies recently won the 2022 VegNews Holiday Cookie Contest in third place! I think most of y'all already knew they were good but now they have a real official stamp of approval.
vegan empire cookies
These classic and sophisticated cookies were a childhood fave! Be sure to have them on your dessert table for the next holiday that rolls around.
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Servings: cookies
Ingredients
cookie batter
- 2 C all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- ½ C vegan butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 C granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅓ C unsweetened nondairy milk
filling
- ½ C raspberry jam
alternative: homemade filling
- 3 C frozen or fresh raspberries
- ¾ C granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoon lemon juice
royal icing
- 1 C powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened nondairy milk
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon chopped dried cranberries, as garnish
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and sea salt and set aside.
- In another bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla extract with a hand mixer or you can do this in a stand mixer. Once it's fluffy and smooth, add the nondairy milk and continue beating until fluffy and well combined. It may even look slightly crumbly as the vegan butter separates slightly from the liquid, but it's fine.
- Add half the flour mixture and continue beating until smooth. Then add the remaining flour mixture and beat until it's half combined. Mix the remaining batter with a wooden spoon or spatula until combined. If you're doing this in a stand mixer, just mix it until it's combined and no flour is visible.
- Dump the cookie dough onto plastic wrap. Wrap it up and slightly flatten it into a disc shape. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before rolling out. You can also make the dough well ahead of time and freeze it if desired. Allow it to thaw in the fridge overnight before rolling it out. After refrigeration for longer than an hour, you might need to let it sit out of the fridge for 10 minutes.
- When you're ready to roll out the dough, preheat the oven to 325°F.
- Lightly flour a clean counter surface and cut the dough in half. Wrap and refrigerate the other half and work with one portion at a time. Roll out to 3/16 inch thick and cut out 2" to 2 ¼" round cookies. If you have a round scalloped edged cookie cutter, use that to make it look extra pretty!
- Place the cookies onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Take the excess dough and gently press it together into a flattened disc and roll it out again to 3/16 inch thick. Cut out as many cookies as you can until there's only a scrap of dough left which you can discard. You don't need to handle the dough or knead it in anyway - that will make the cookie tough rather then pillowy and soft. Use as little excess flour as you can without letting the dough stick to the counter or the rolling pin.
- Bake 1 baking sheet at a time on the middle rack of the oven for 14 minutes. If you've placed more cookies on other baking sheets, leave these in the fridge until you bake them. The cookies are done if the bottoms of them are just slightly brown and the edges are also slightly golden (or have no color at all). Ensure you don't over bake these cookies! Remove them right away onto wire racks to cool completely before assembling with jam and icing.
- To make the homemade raspberry filling, add raspberries, sugar, and lemon juice to a sauce pan and heat over medium. Whisk to combine everything as the fruit softens. Cook for about 10 minutes. Then strain the mixture through a fine mesh sieve over another sauce pan over medium-low heat. Use a spatula and really press the raspberry puree through the sieve. You'll likely need to scrape the bottom of the sieve to get the jelly into the pan. Then cook the strained mixture for another 5 minutes. Remove from the heat to cool completely or speed up the cooling process by placing the bottom of the pot into a bowl with ice water.
- Combine the royal icing ingredients in a bowl with a whisk until smooth.
- Spread about a ½ teaspoon of raspberry jam on one cookie and sandwich with another. Then spread about a ½ teaspoon of icing on top just out to before the edges of the cookie. Finish by placing a small piece of dried cranberry in the centre. Let the cookies dry at room temperature before storing between layers of parchment in an air tight container at room temperature. You can also freeze these cookies for up to 3 months. Let thaw at room temperature before serving.
Ana
Can I use (vegan) margarine for this?
Lauren Toyota
probably but the only thing is margarine remains soft always, whether in the fridge or at room temp? So I'm not sure how it will affect the spread of the cookies
Natalie Ackerman
Tried with coconut oil, but we forgot to adjust the recipe for altitude!
Lauren Toyota
oh no! I don't understand the altitude thing :/
Amanda
Can I use strawberry jam instead?
Lauren Toyota
YUP! whatever you like - raspberry is just nice as it's a little more tart
Tracy
These sound amazing! Thinking you could change the jam up for any time of year. Next month, maybe a nice lemon curd in the middle instead. Definitely going to try these!
Lauren Toyota
yaaaa sounds nice!
Tuffi75
Fail....came out toooo crispy....Next time
Laurent
I just made this and I'm in love! My only problem is that the icing tastes so chalky. Is there a way to overcome that taste?
Amanda Erickson
This is possibly the best tasting vegan sugar cookie dough I've tried in last 5 years and I'm a vegan food blogger. Am going to use this recipe from now on for my holiday iced sugar cookies.
Megan
I made these and my family, friends and neighbours loved them!
Dee
I gave this recipe to my wee Scottish granny who makes the best ever empire biscuit (just not vegan) and she whipped me up a batch. Holy cow these are melt in the mouth delicious even she admitted they were pretty dang good! Officially Scottish granny approved!
Amy
Does the icing harden? Like can they be stacked or will the icing stick them to each other
Lena
Hi! Not sure what I did wrong, but I followed the recipe, and my dough was extremely sticky and I couldn't work with it! It was very solid after leaving it in the fridge, but still way too sticky. any advice?
Elizabeth
I took these for afternoon tea with a group I volunteer with. They were a hit - such a classic combination of flavours and easier to make, and you could never guess from the tastes and textures that they were vegan! Thank you Lauren 🙂
diana
these are simply amazing
Juliette
ok I made these twice and they were amazing, thank you from a French viewer/reader !
( and I will add a little anecdote : the second time I did not prep my ingredients (I know it's bad) so I realized after blending the butter and the sugar that I did not had enough all-purpose flour. So I blended oats to make oat flour (how much I don't know) and replaced about 2/3 of the wheat flour with it. They turned out even better ! I still can't believe it, I'm not one of those gluten hater so I never used oat flour. Try it If you're a wild adventurer like me ahah..)
Dona
This is the recipe i use to make sugar cookies! I don’t know if its really a sugar cookie but it’s what i use and it always turns out great! I’ve used it more than 3 times already
Lara
Hi so I know that these are meant to be vegan and this is probably annoying, but I saw this recipe done by somebody online and I was wondering if they can be translated to non vegan since I don’t have those ingredients or it would affect the taste?
Lauren Toyota
it will work if you use regular butter and milk
Carrie Xie
These did not turn out at all. I followed the recipe to a T and even made sure the dough was super chilled. If i'm not wrong, empire cookies are similar to shortbread with jam in the middle. All, if not, most recipes I've found on shortbread cookies does not require any liquid. The addition of the milk activated the gluten in the dough and it baked out to be like very dry pancake thing. Very disappointing as I made a double batch so now I'm stuck with mini dry pancakes and a ball of dough I will not attempt to bake
Lauren Toyota
I'm sorry to hear that. But strange because so many people make this recipe and have success. They repeat it every year in their holiday cookie baking! Never heard this feedback before. It was even tested by VegNews and won an award for best holiday cookie recipe! Did you change any ingredients? Do you live somewhere with high altitude? If they look like pancakes I suspect you would have added too much liquid or used a margarine product not a vegan butter stick?