Vegan Jam-Filled Butter Cookies

Vegan Jam Filled Butter Cookies

Even though I don’t really celebrate Easter, it is one of my favorite holidays. I love it today for the same reasons why I loved it as a kid – the egg-hunting (What do vegans hunt? Tofu? Chocolate? Seitan?), the Easter Bunny, the basket of goodies, the pastels, the flowers. Plus it’s a holiday that always equals springtime to me and I love spring in ways I just don’t love the other seasons of the year.

Despite the fact that I don’t really celebrate like I used to, I still try to acknowledge it through something sweet and delicious. (Remember this crumb cake? To die for!) This year, I had been thinking I wanted to try to make jam-filled butter cookies. I don’t normally gravitate towards these kinds of cookies, but I wanted to expand my horizons. I am so glad I did – these are so super easy and fast to make, delicious and you can make them with most any kind of jam you like. I made these with strawberry jam, but you can make them with raspberry jam (probably best to go with seedless), and I bet orange marmalade would be great, too.

Note: In the first picture in my post you’ll see cookies made with coconut palm sugar, but in the step-by-step photos I am using regular vegan cane sugar. These cookies tasted good both ways, but in my opinion the cane sugar version tasted far better. When using a recipe like this one with so few ingredients, the unique flavor of the coconut palm sugar comes out more and doesn’t taste quite as good. But feel free to experiment!

Vegan Jam-Filled Butter Cookies
Recipe based on Berry Shortbread Dreams from Allrecipes.com

• 1 cup vegan butter, softened
• 2/3 cup vegan sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon almond or vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup of your favorite jam, or a variety of jams

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a mixing bowl, cream the vegan butter and sugar. Beat in extract.

Mixing together the vegan butter, sugar and extract

Gradually add your flour until dough forms a ball, then cover and refrigerate for one hour or until easy to handle.

See, this is super fast!

Roll into one-inch balls, then place about one-inch apart on ungreased baking sheets (make sure they are far enough apart as they do flatten in baking).

Rolling cookie dough into one-inch balls

Using the end of a spoon handle or using your thumb, make an indentation in the center.

Be sure to not push all the way down!

Fill each hole with a little jam.

Finally filling the cookies with jam

And they're ready to pop in the oven!

Bake for 14 to 18 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Remove to wire racks to cool. You may spoon additional jam into cookies if desired as they are cooling, but be sure to let them sit out a little while to allow the jam to set and the cookies to fully cool.

Done!

These are perfect for parties – and again so so fast to make. I made a double batch for a fundraiser earlier this year and they were a hit! Good thing I ate a few to taste test beforehand. ;)

A tasty little Easter basket

What is your favorite thing about Easter?

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