These Gluten-Free Vegan Sugar Cookies are soft and chewy, slightly fluffy and covered in a rich, creamy, melt-in-your-mouth cashew frosting. They're also refined sugar free, naturally coloured, and healthier than the traditional version. They're easy to make and the dough doesn't require chilling. The best pretty and colourful sweet treat for Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter, and everything in between!
How to make this recipe
Scroll down to the bottom of the post for the full recipe.
- Mix together the ingredients for the cookie dough in a glass mixing bowl.
- Lay out a sheet of greaseproof baking paper on a counter. Sprinkle the surface of the paper and a rolling pin with a generous amount of flour and roll out the dough until about 5mm/1/4 inch thick.
- Use a circular cookie cutter to cut shapes out of the dough - you will probably have to roll the dough a few times until you use it all up.
- Transfer the cookies onto two rectangular baking trays.
Tip: Line the baking trays with greased baking paper to make sure the cookies don't stick.
- Bake in oven for around 10-12 minutes, until golden brown.
- They will be slightly soft when you remove them from the oven - leave to cool completely to let them harden before applying the frosting.
How to decorate
- Place the ingredients for the frosting in a food processor or blender.
- Whizz until completely smooth.
- Split up the frosting into separate bowls if you want to make multiple colours of frosting, and add the cocoa powder, beetroot powder, matcha or spirulina, as desired - add a tiny bit of the powder at a time until you get the desired colour.
- Use a knife to spread a bit of frosting over each of the cookies.
- Decorate with cacao nibs, desiccated coconut, rose petals or freeze-dried raspberries, as desired.
How long do these Sugar Cookies keep for?
These Sugar Cookies do taste best when fresh, but keep covered in the fridge for up to a few days.
Substitutions you can make
- You can use any type of plant-based milk: almond milk, rice milk, soy milk, cashew milk, oat milk etc.
- You can replace the coconut oil with coconut butter.
- You can use any type of liquid sweetener: maple syrup, agave syrup, brown rice syrup etc.
- You can replace the gluten-free flour with rice flour.
- If you don't need the cookies to be gluten-free, you can replace the gluten-free flour with plain flour.
- The ground almonds can be replaced with ground walnuts.
- For a nut-free version, use ground sunflower seeds instead of ground almonds and omit the frosting or make a different frosting!
More gluten-free vegan cookie recipes
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
- Blueberry Breakfast Cookies
- Peanut Butter Cookies
- Oatmeal Cookies
- Snickerdoodles
- Chocolate Cookies
- Carrot Cake Cookies
- Millionaire Shortbread
- Gingerbread Cookie Bars
If you try out this recipe or anything else from my blog, I'd really love to hear any feedback! Please give it a rating, leave a comment, or tag a photo @rhiansrecipes #rhiansrecipes on Instagram! Thank you.
Watch how to make this recipe
Gluten-Free Vegan Sugar Cookies
These Gluten-Free Vegan Sugar Cookies are soft and chewy, slightly fluffy and covered in a rich, creamy cashew frosting.
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Servings: 20 cookies
Calories: 142kcal
Ingredients
For the cookies:
- 30 g (⅛ cup) coconut oil (or sub coconut butter)
- 10 tablespoons maple syrup (or sub any other similar sweetener)
- 3 tablespoons unsweetened almond milk (or any other plant-based milk)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 150 g (1 ¼ cup) ground almonds (almond meal) *
- 150 g (1 ¼ cup) gluten-free flour blend plus more for rolling (or sub rice flour, or plain flour if not gluten-free)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder (ensure gluten-free if necessary)
For the frosting:
- 100 g (⅔ cup) cashew nuts soaked in cold water overnight or in hot water for 15 minutes
- 3 tablespoons maple syrup (or sub any other sweetener)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 tablespoons unsweetened almond milk (or sub water or any other plant-based milk)
To decorate (optional):
- Cocoa powder
- Beetroot powder
- Matcha powder (or spirulina)
- Cacao nibs
- Desiccated coconut
- Rose petals
- Freeze-dried raspberries
Instructions
For the cookies:
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit).
- Place the coconut oil in a large bowl and melt over a saucepan of boiling water or in the microwave.
- Add the maple syrup, milk and vanilla and mix well.
- Measure out the ground almonds, gluten-free flour and baking powder and mix well.
- Add these to the other ingredients and mix well.
- Lay out a sheet of greaseproof baking paper on a counter. Sprinkle the surface of the paper and a rolling pin with a generous amount of flour and roll out the cookie dough until about 5mm (¼ inch) thick.
- Use a circular cookie cutter to cut shapes out of the dough - you will probably have to roll the dough a few times until you use it all up.
- Transfer the cookies onto two baking trays/baking sheets lined with greased baking paper.
- Bake in oven for around 10-12 minutes, until golden brown.
- They will be slightly soft when you remove them from the oven - leave to cool completely to let them harden before applying the frosting.
For the frosting:
- Drain the soaked cashews and add to a food processor or blender with the maple syrup, vanilla and milk.
- Whizz until completely smooth, adding more milk or water if necessary.
- Split up the frosting into separate bowls if you want to make multiple colours of frosting, and add the cocoa powder, beetroot powder, matcha or spirulina, as desired - add a tiny bit of the powder at a time until you get the desired colour.
- Use a knife to spread a bit of frosting over each of the cookies.
- Decorate with cacao nibs, desiccated coconut, rose petals or freeze-dried raspberries, as desired.
- Taste best when fresh, but keep covered in the fridge for up to a few days.
Video
Notes
*You can alternatively use almond flour.
Nutrition Facts
Gluten-Free Vegan Sugar Cookies
Amount Per Serving
Calories 142
Calories from Fat 63
% Daily Value*
Fat 7g11%
Saturated Fat 1g5%
Sodium 7mg0%
Potassium 82mg2%
Carbohydrates 16g5%
Fiber 1g4%
Sugar 8g9%
Protein 3g6%
Calcium 50mg5%
Iron 0.9mg5%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
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Terry
Tried this this weekend and they turned out great! But I did use my gram measurements for the flours (the 150 grams each for the GF flour and the Almond flour made them too soft and sticky).
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much, so glad you liked them!
Cassie
Can i us original sugar cookie icing. Powdered sugar and milk mixture with vanilla? Cashews are badly expensive here.
Rhian Williams
Yes sure!!
Rachel
You mentioned we can use rice flour instead of the gluten free flour. Does it matter if it is white or brown rice flour? Thanks!
Rhian Williams
I recommend white rice flour. Brown rice flour yields a crunchy, crispy texture like Shortbread Cookies (https://www.rhiansrecipes.com/shortbread-cookies/)
Katie
My daughters wanted to make sugar cookies this afternoon and I wanted a ‘healthier’ version. This was a perfect fit! My daughters loved them and I loved that they had only natural sugar and were GF and vegan. I’m looking forward to trying some of the other variations!
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much, so happy to hear that!
REBECA
Fabulous recipe! i put a small dollop of raspberry jam on top then topped that with a sliver of marzipan. I like how versatile this recipe is.
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much, so happy to hear that!