These Vegan Christmas Pudding Sugar Cookies are made with a chocolate biscuit base and decorated to look like Christmas Puddings. They are an adorable festive treat!
Christmas and Advent Cookies
Christmas biscuits and cookies have a long history and connection to Christmas and advent.
Across Europe and beyond, cookies and biscuits are eaten in the run up to Christmas. Some are linked to special days and celebrations that occur throughout advent but these days they are baked any time from the first Sunday of advent up until Christmas day.
I love this tradition of cookies for Christmas so much that I've posted a huge range on the blog over the last few years. From vanillekipferl to candy cane sugar cookies and everything in between.
You can find more Christmas and advent cookies below.
How to make Vegan Christmas Pudding Sugar Cookies
These cookies aren't Christmas pudding flavoured, rather they are made to look like Christmas puddings thanks to the chocolate biscuit and icing decoration.
They are great to make with children as they aren't at all complicated to make.
Pro tips for making Christmas Pudding Sugar Cookies
Don't use spreadable butter
You will see that this recipe calls for vegan block butter. This is very important as only block butter will ensure your cookies don't spread. Spreadable butters have a high water content which will affect the consistency of the dough and cause the biscuits to expand in the oven losing their lovely round shape.
My preferred brands are Flora and Naturli.
Don't substitute the caster sugar
It can be tempted to use natural sugars like coconut suger, maple syrup or even agave in recipes. But these will affect both the flavour and the texture of the finished cookie. Maple Syrup and agave are also more likely to cause the cookies to spread while in the oven.
Only caster sugar will create crisp sugar cookies that don't lose their shape.
Always chill your cookies
In this recipe I chill my cookie dough twice: when the dough has been formed and then again when you've cut out the round shapes. Again this is to prevent them spreading in the oven.
If you are in a rush then you can chill them in the freezer for half the time.
Use soy milk rather than other plant milks
You might prefer oat milk in your cup of tea or maybe almond milk in your coffee but when baking I always recommend using soy milk. This is because of it's fat and protein content which more closely resembles cows milk.
For more tips about substituting dairy for plant based versions, check out my big vegan baking guide.
The recipe
Vegan Christmas Pudding Cookies
Equipment
- Rolling Pin
- Cookies cutters
- Baking trays
- Cooling rack
- Icing bags
Ingredients
For the cookie dough
- 150 g vegan block butter or margarine
- 100 g caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla paste
- 225 g plain flour
- 50 g cocoa powder
- 1 pinch salt
- 2 tablespoon unsweetened soy milk or similar non-dairy milk
For the decoration
- 250 g icing sugar
- water warm
- red and green gel food colouring
Instructions
To make the cookies
- In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy (I use an electric mixer but this can be done by hand).
- Add in the flour, cocoa powder and salt and stir until combined; to bring it together into a ball of dough, add the plant milk and stir.
- Lightly dust your work surface with flour and tip the dough out (don’t worry if its still crumbly at this stage, there’s no need to add extra milk).
- Knead the dough to bring it together until its one smooth ball of dough. Avoid overworking it.
- Wrap the dough in cling film or place it into a Ziploc bag and place into the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes. While the dough is cooling, line a couple of baking sheets with baking paper and place to one side.
- Once the dough is chilled, roll it out on to a floured surface. Be sure to move pick up the dough and rotate in between rolling it out to stop it sticking to your work surface. Stop once the dough is roughly 5mm / ¼ inch thick.
- Cut out as many cookies as you can and place them straight on to the lined baking trays. Place these trays into the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Bring together all of the trimmings into a ball, re-roll and cut out more cookies. Keep repeating this until you have use up all of the dough and don’t forget to chill them before baking.
- While the cookies are chilling, preheat the oven to 180 C / 350 F / gas mark 4.
- Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes until they are just golden brown.
- Once baked, transfer the cookies to a cooling rack and leave to cool completely before decorating
To decorate
- Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl and slowly add just 1 tablespoon of warm water at a time until the icing is smooth and thick. It should be thick enough to hold it's shape when piped. Be very cautious as it's much easy to add more water to make it thinner than it is to add more icing sugar to make it thicker.
- Split the icing between three bowls. Leave one white and colour the other two green and red. (You only need a few tablespoon of icing for the red and green.)
- Transfer the icing into separate icing bags then, using the white icing pipe the outside of the drips. Let this set slightly before filling in the outline.
- Leave the icing to set again before using the red and green icing to pipe holly and berries.
- Leave the icing to dry for an hour or two before eating.
Nutrition
More Christmas and Advent Cookies
These Christmas and Advent Cookies are all vegan (or have a vegan option) making them perfect for serving to your guests regardless of whether they follow a plant based diet or not. Everyone will love them!
Vegan Gingerbread Snowflakes
More Christmas recipes
For the full range of Christmas recipes check out the Christmas recipe archive
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