Total Time: Less than two hours
Yield: about 24 1oz cookies
Cookie Ingredients:
½ cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch + 1 tablespoon water
¾ cup vegan milk - I used oat milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 ¾ cup flour
½ cup cocoa powder - make sure it’s vegan friendly! I use Hershey’s Cocoa Powder.
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
15 juniper berries - crushed well
Glaze Ingredients:
¼ cup vegan butter - I used Earth Balance
1 cup powdered sugar - sifted
2 tablespoons warm water
Instructions:
Mix the cornstarch and water - this is your egg replacer
Crush the juniper berries - I used a mortar & pestle
Beat together the shortening, sugar, and vanilla
Add the vegan milk to the sugar mix and beat well
Combine all dry ingredients and juniper berries - mix well and then thoroughly mix with the sugar mix
Cover the dough and let chill in fridge for one hour
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Roll cookies into 1oz balls and then flatten into a puck - place in oven for 5 minutes
Using your finger, make an indent into the center of the cookie, rotate the tray, bake for an additional 5 minutes
Remove from oven and let cool on the cookie sheet - it’s a very soft cookie
Prepare your glaze - melt the butter in a saucepan on medium heat
Once fully melted add the powdered sugar and mix well and quickly
Add the water and continuing stirring till desired consistency is reached
Slowly pour the glaze on top of the mostly cooled cookies
Let the glaze set for about 10 minutes
Enjoy!
I love these cookies! They’re the perfect combination of rich, fluffy, and playful. My husband started eating the cookies before I could tell him what they were and he just assumed they were chocolate cookies until I told him about the juniper. The juniper does a fantastic job of being apparent when you know it’s there but it can stay nicely disguised as well. Usually I get a little aggressive with my flavors but I really do love the subtlety of these cookies. The texture is interesting because they’re too fluffy to be a cookie and too dense to be a cake and not chewy enough to be a brownie. They’re filling and rich yet very easy to consume quickly. The texture of this cookie makes it a little more difficult to tell when it’s done so remember that it’s better to pull that tray out early than it is to leave it in for too long. 10 minutes in the oven, total, was perfect in my oven for the 1oz size. I hope you all enjoy them as much as I did!