


Spiced Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- Cookie dough
- 1/2 cup butter softened
- 1 cup 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 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
-
Make the cookies
-
Preheat oven to 350.
-
Combine butter and sugar in bowl of stand mixer.
-
Beat for 2 minutes on low speed using paddle attachment.
-
Add eggs, one at a time, mixing until fully incorporated.
-
Add yogurt and vanilla, mixing until incorporated.
-
Add baking powder, soda, salt, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Mix on low.
-
Form dough into a ball the size of a walnut. Place on cookie sheet, leaving 2 inches between cookies.
-
Flatten balls of dough slightly.
-
Bake for 12 minutes.
-
Cool completely.
-
Make the glaze
-
Combine powdered sugar, vanilla, milk, and cinnamon; mix well.
-
Add more milk, half a teaspoon at a time, if needed.
-
Using a spoon, pour a small amount of glaze on a cookie, and spread with back of spoon.
-
Glaze will set in 5 minutes.
Notes
Replace butter with dairy-free margarine.
Replace yogurt with dairy-free yogurt. I used coconut milk yogurt.
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.
I figured most margarine would be dairy-free. Au contraire! After a bit of searching in 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.
