This recipe is only four and a half years old, but it is seven homes ago! Since shortly after this recipe was published, my husband and I have embarked on a journey to find our new home. While the journey to find our home took longer than planned (Thanks, Covid), we enjoyed much of our time exploring new places along the way. The exciting part is that we did figure our home(s) out and now divide our time between Pensacola, Florida, and Lexington, Kentucky.
(Side note: The daughter I wrote about in the article is now a college graduate, who lives in Phoenix. Although she no longer eats a vegan diet, she still is dairy-free, so this recipe (or its vegan version) is still perfect for her.)
The original post from January 2020
As I mentioned last month, my daughter is vegan. Although I’ve been vegetarian a number of times in my life, I’ve never been vegan. As someone who enjoys working with food and learning new things, this has been a good experience for me.
It’s amazing what you learn when you look at food preparation through a different lens. As she prepared to return to college in late August, I looked for a few snacks to send with her. To my surprise, it’s even harder to find vegan crackers than I would have imagined.
She came home from college over Columbus Day weekend, and we celebrated a mini-Thanksgiving, as she goes to school in Canada. Being vegan, turkey wasn’t the request; lasagna was. I’m familiar with vegan cheese, so that was easy. What was harder than expected? Finding vegan bread and margarine.
Shopping for vegan items
I figured most margarine would be dairy-free. Au contraire! After a bit of studying the dairy case, I found vegan butter. Searching at the bakery for some Italian bread took a while as well. As someone who makes bread, this surprised me. Most of the French or Italian loves I make are dairy-free; not so much at the grocery store bakery. Oh well, you learn something every day.
Now, on to these cookies, which I made as part of a care package for my daughter. I’ve written the recipe as a “regular” batch of cookies, as it seems that most of my audience eats in that style. However, in the notes I have listed the changes I made to convert this recipe to vegan. It’s pretty darn simple, and maybe even obvious, but I wanted to share.
If you want to make these cookies more festive, just add some pretty sprinkles right after the glaze.
For more baking inspiration, here’s a link to my Cornmeal Cookies.
Spiced Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- Cookie dough
- 1/2 cup butter softened
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup plain yogurt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1-1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- Glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
- 1-1/2 tablespoon milk
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
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Make the cookies
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Preheat oven to 350.
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Combine butter and sugar in bowl of stand mixer.
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Beat for 2 minutes on low speed using paddle attachment.
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Add eggs, one at a time, mixing until fully incorporated.
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Add yogurt and vanilla, mixing until incorporated.
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Add baking powder, soda, salt, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Mix on low.
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Form dough into a ball the size of a walnut. Place on cookie sheet, leaving 2 inches between cookies.
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Flatten balls of dough slightly.
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Bake for 12 minutes.
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Cool completely.
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Make the glaze
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Combine powdered sugar, vanilla, milk, and cinnamon; mix well.
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Add more milk, half a teaspoon at a time, if needed.
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Using a spoon, pour a small amount of glaze on a cookie, and spread with back of spoon.
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Glaze will set in 5 minutes.
Notes
Replace butter with dairy-free margarine.
Replace yogurt with dairy-free yogurt. I used coconut milk yogurt.
