Top-down shot of triangles of Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread on a white plate. Shortbread is decorated with lemon-infused sugar.
October 18, 2023

Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread

October 18, 2023

Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread

Top-down shot of triangles of Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread on a white plate. Shortbread is decorated with lemon-infused sugar.

Rich and buttery, this vegan brown butter shortbread is sublime topped with lemon-infused icing sugar. While this may sound fancy, rest assured, the recipe is kid simple: 1 bowl, 1 minute of mixing, then straight into a cake pan and into the oven.

Having said that, you do need to make the vegan brown butter ahead of time, as it needs to be chilled a few hours before using.

Top-down view of Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread

Ingredients

There are just 4 ingredients in this recipe: vegan brown butter, rice flour, icing sugar, and cake and pastry flour.

About Vegan Brown Butter

Brown butter makes everything better so we created a vegan version -- and it's almost as simple to make as regular brown butter. Make the vegan brown butter earlier in the day or the night before and chill it. It won’t harden when chilled, but it will be a thick, pourable consistency.

About Icing Sugar

Icing sugar, also called powdered sugar or confectioner's sugar, is found in the baking section of most grocery stores.

If you have a blender, you can make your own using white sugar - just blend on high speed for a few seconds until the sugar grains turn into powder. 

Not all icing sugar or white sugar is suitable for vegans, see Sugar, Sugar, Honey, Honey: A Guide to Sweeteners for Plant-Based Diets for more information. 

About Rice Flour

The rice flour helps make the shortbread tender, as it has a lower protein content than regular flour

Ingredients for Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread: vegan brown butter, icing sugar, rice flour, cake and pastry flour

About Cake and Pastry Flour

Cake and Pastry Flour has a lower protein content than regular flour, which helps make the shortbread tender. 

Visual Overview: Making Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread

  • Before you start this recipe, be sure to prepare and chill the vegan brown butter.
  • Preheat the oven to 300F.

Step 1: Prepare a cake pan.

Brush the sides and bottom of an 8-inch cake pan with some vegan brown butter. 

Top-down view of cake pan brushed with vegan brown butter, for making Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread

Step 2: Combine the ingredients in a large bowl

Add the vegan brown butter to a large bowl, then add in the dry ingredients and stir

Top-down shot of ingredients for Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread in a white mixing bowl

Making Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread

Top-down view of mixing bowl containing dough for Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread Cookies

Making Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread

Step 3: Spoon dough into pan and bake.

Spoon the cookie dough into the pan, levelling it out. It doesn’t have to be perfectly flat as it will rise in the oven and even out somewhat.

Top-down shot of Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread raw cookie dough pressed into 9 inch cake pan.

Making Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread

Bake for about 25 minutes, until lightly browned.

Step 4: Slice into cookies.

Once cooled, run a knife around the edge of the cookie and then cut it into triangles. We made 16 cookies as they are quite rich. You can enjoy as is, or decorate (see next step.)

Top-down shot of Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread, cut into triangles on a white plate

Making Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread

Step 5: Optionally, decorate.

If you want to garnish the cookies with the lemon-infused sugar like we did, remove the cookies from the cake pan and line them up to form a circle in the same way they came out of the pan.

Put something lacy on top, such as a doily. We used a placement from CB2 that looks a bit like a doily and it did the trick. You could even make a paper snowflake and use that.

Top-down view of lacy placement on top of cookies

Put the icing sugar in a small sieve and press the sugar through the sieve with a small spoon, moving around to cover all of the cookies.

Carefully remove the doily and your cookies are dusted with lemony-sugar and are ready to impress.

Top-down shot of triangles of Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread on a white plate. Shortbread is decorated with lemon-infused sugar.


Tips: Plant-based baking

If you're new to plant-based baking, you're probably curious about making cookies without eggs or butter. We love using aquafaba as our egg replacer. It's the liquid from canned or home-cooked beans. If using the liquid from the can, it requires no preparation at all - just separate the liquid from the chickpeas drain and it's ready to go. See our detailed post, Aquafaba: An Easy Vegan Egg Replacer, for more information.

To replace the butter in this recipe, we're using vegan brown butter, which is made from vegan butter or margarine and pecans. The pecans provide the nutty flavour that you get from browning regular butter.

This recipe uses icing sugar. Sugar is one area where plant-based and vegan diets don't completely overlap. Due to how it's processed, some icing sugar may not be vegan-friendly -- however some plant-based eaters choose to eat it, as the final product does not contain animal products. For more information, see Sugar, Sugar, Honey, Honey: A Guide to Sweeteners for Plant-Based Diets.

Pinterest Pin for Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread, showing vegan brown butter and the finished shortbread

Recipe Card

Vegan Brown Butter Shortbread

Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Rich and buttery, this vegan brown butter shortbread is sublime topped with lemon-infused icing sugar. While this may sound fancy, rest assured, the recipe is kid simple: 1 bowl, 1 minute of mixing, then straight into a cake pan and into the oven.
Servings 16
Calories 103 kcal
Author Sylvia

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup vegan brown butter, chilled (See instructions section for link to recipe.)
  • 1/4 cup rice flour
  • 1/2 cup icing sugar
  • 1 cup cake and pastry flour
  • vegan brown butter, for the baking pan

Lemon Icing Sugar

  • 1/4 teaspoon lemon rind, finely grated
  • 1/4 cup cane sugar

Instructions

To make the cookies

  • Preheat the oven to 300F.
  • Combine the chilled vegan brown butter and other cookie ingredients in a mixing bowl, and mix for about a minute until well-combined.
  • Butter the sides and bottom of the a 9 inch cake pan with vegan brown butter. Spoon the cookie dough into the pan, spreading it evenly.
  • Bake for 25 minutes, or until lightly browned. Let cook before cutting and decorating.

To make the lemon-infused icing sugar

  • Combine the ingredients in a blender and blend for a few seconds until the sugar is the consistency of icing sugar

To decorate

  • Once the cookies have cooled, use a sharp knife to loosen the edge of the cookies in the pan. Slice the cookies into 12 triangles and then carefully remove to a plate. Place a paper doily over the cookies. Put a tablespoon or two of the lemon icing sugar in a small sieve and then use a spoon to press the icing sugar through the sieve, covering the cookies uniformly.

Notes

About Vegan Brown Butter 

Make the vegan brown butter earlier in the day or the night before so that it has time to chill. It will be a thick, pourable liquid. 
Use the buttery pecans to make Dark Chocolate Bark. 

Substitutes for Vegan Brown Butter 

If you're in a hurry, you can use regular margarine for this recipe too. The cookies will have a slightly different texture, and the taste will not be identical but they are still good.

Nutritional Information

Nutrition information is an estimate only, without the icing sugar toppings. 

Nutrition

Calories: 103kcal | Carbohydrates: 11g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 6g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 67mg | Potassium: 11mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 254IU | Calcium: 3mg | Iron: 1mg

Courses, Cuisines, and Keywords

Course
Dessert
Cuisine
American
|
Canadian
Keywords
cookies
|
shortbread
|
vegan brown butter

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Hello!


We're creating a course: Baby Steps to Plant-Based Eating

Yes, seriously. Trying a plant-based diet can be overwhelming and we'd like to help. 

This course is for you if: 

  • you're curious about plant-based eating, but don't know where to start 
  • you have family or friends who eat plant-based and you'd like to be able to cook for them
  • you've dabbled with plant-based cooking, but would like to expand your repertoire 

Baby Steps to Plant-Based Eating will: 

  • answer your pressing questions
  • cultivate your confidence 
  • arm you with recipes

Want to learn more?  

Join our email list for updates about the course launch. You'll also get priority access to new recipes, and other subscriber privileges.