Easy & Soft Nutella Linzer Cookie Recipe (Vegan!)
This “buttery” and soft Linzer cookie recipe is so easy to make, naturally vegan and eggless, and filled with a rich vegan Nutella spread! The perfect classic Christmas cookie to make this season!
What nationality are Linzer cookies?
Linzer cookies actually come from a city called Linzer, in Austria. The version that we see today has definitely been Americanized, but some of the same classic tastes and textures still remain in the popular Christmas cookie.
What are Linzer cookies made of?
Traditionally, Linzer cookies are made with butter, eggs, flour, and almonds ground into a flour. They have a bit of a nutty flavor, thanks to the almonds, with light notes of vanilla bean. These Austrian cookies are traditionally filled with jams and preserves, and dusted with powdered sugar.
I wanted to place my own twist on the classic Christmas cookie, and seeing as I run a vegan food blog, we needed to veganize these Linzer cookies, which wasn’t hard to do! Since Linzer cookies are made from butter and eggs, we have some wonderful vegan swaps: vegan butter and arrowroot starch!
Don’t worry: you still get the classic Linzer cookie taste. You honestly won’t even know these cookies are eggless and dairy free!
For these secretly vegan Linzer cookies, you’ll need:
- Flour: You can use all purpose flour or gluten free flour.
- Almond flour: You can also swap in oat flour for nut free!
- Arrowroot starch: This is very similar to cornstarch, and can be used interchangeably. What I love about arrowroot is that a little makes all the difference. Not only will it help to bind the dough, but it will add a really beautiful soft and velvety texture to the cookies that will just help them melt in your mouth!
- Vegan butter: I recommend using Miyoko’s vegan butter- it’s the best tasting vegan butter I’ve found!
- Granulated sugar: For vegan, make sure you’re purchasing organic sugar.
- Vegan nutella: Technically, Nutella isn’t vegan, but we can make our own (linked in the recipe card!), which is what I did. There are also wonderful dairy free vegan chocolate hazelnut spreads that are store bought, such as Rigioni di Asiago Nocciolata senza latte (which I use regularly, it’s wonderful!).
How to make easy & soft Linzer cookies vegan (overview)
For the full written instructions and ingredient measurements, see the bottom of this post in the recipe card. You can also hit the “jump to recipe” button at the top of this post! Here, we’ll go over a brief overview of the steps, along with providing visuals for a better understanding of the recipe.
Making these classic sandwich cookies might seem tedious, but they’re actually quite fun to make (and rather easy!). The dough is very similar to a sugar cookie dough, so if you’ve ever made vegan sugar cookies, you’re in luck!
Then we just spread a delicious filling in between and sprinkle with powdered sugar!
Let’s go over the basics for making this Linzer cookie recipe:
- Whisk the dry ingredients.
It’s super crucial to make sure you’re whisking the flour with the almond flour and arrowroot starch to evenly distribute all the flours!
- Cream together the vegan butter and sugar.
You can use either a hand mixer or a stand mixer. Either works! Make sure you’re mixing the two together until the color starts to turn a bit lighter. This means the sugar is starting to emulsify into the butter, and that’s good!
- Finish making the dough.
Add in the vanilla and the flour mixture, and fold until you reach a consistent dough. You don’t need any dairy free milk. Just keep mixing!
- Chill the dough.
Once you’ve made the dough, you’ll chill it once more to make sure that the dough isn’t too soft to work with. This will ensure that your cookies won’t spread in the oven too!
How do you use Linzer cookie cutters?
Once you’ve chilled the dough, we’ll cut out the Linzer cookies. The vegan Linzer cookie dough is actually just as easy to work with as the more traditional version. It won’t stick as long as the table is well floured and the dough is chilled.
Linzer cookie cutters all work a bit differently, but the one I have, you can make the Linzer cookie rounds, pressing them into the rolled out dough, much like sugar cookies. Then press the middle piece into your cookie!
Do I need to chill the dough?
I recommend chilling the vegan Linzer cookie dough twice: once after making the dough, and again, right before they go into the oven. This ensures that the dough won’t spread, and your Linzer cookies maintain their beautiful scalloped shape!
Different vegan fillings:
If you don’t want to go the chocolate hazelnut filling route, like I did, you can try these easy vegan classic Linzer cookies that I made last year for Cookie Week!
They’re filled with raspberry jam, and are absolutely delicious!
Here are a few more ideas for Linzer cookie fillings that are vegan:
- Apricot jam
- Vegan ganache
- Peanut butter or cashew butter
- Cherry preserves
- Strawberry preserves
How to store vegan Linzer cookies:
Once you’ve baked your Linzer cookies, be sure to store them properly so that they don’t go bad! Especially if you’re packing them for your vegan cookie boxes. If you haven’t downloaded our free cookie baking time sheet and ingredient list, be sure to here!
Place your made vegan Linzer cookies into an airtight container and into the freezer to chill for up to 3 months. They’ll also last about 7 days in the fridge if you’d prefer! But if you’re sending these cookies to friends, you’ll definitely want to freeze them.
Be sure to check out more of our vegan Christmas cookies here! And if you make this Linzer cookie recipe, don’t forget to tag us on Instagram and leave a comment down below on how they went! Enjoy 🙂
Want to save this recipe for later? Add it to your favorite recipe board on Pinterest!
If you make this recipe, please be sure to leave a comment and a rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ below. This helps others to find the recipes! As always, I absolutely love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there as well!
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Easy & Soft Nutella Linzer Cookie Recipe (Vegan!)
- Prep Time: 15
- 30 minutes, chill time:
- Cook Time: 12
- Total Time: 27 minutes
- Yield: 25 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Austrian
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This “buttery” and soft Linzer cookie recipe is so easy to make, naturally vegan and eggless, and filled with a rich vegan Nutella spread! The perfect classic Christmas cookie to make this season!
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1 tbsp arrowroot starch
- 3/4 cup salted vegan butter, softened but still cold (not quite room temperature)
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract or powder
- 3/4 cup vegan nutella or store bought dairy free chocolate hazelnut spread
- Powdered sugar for topping
Instructions
- Please read through all instructions before beginning.
- Prep: Measure out all ingredients. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and set aside.
- Whisk: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, almond flour, and arrowroot starch. Set aside.
- Make the dough: In a large bowl with a hand mixer or in a stand mixer, cream together the vegan butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add in the vanilla, and mix again until evenly distributed. Add in the flour mixture, and use a silicone spatula to fold the flour into the butter mixture until just mixed. This will take a bit of work, but it will combine into the butter mixture to create a dough without any need for added dairy free milk.
- Chill the dough: Wrap the dough in parchment paper and place in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes.
- Make the Linzer cookies: Lightly flour a clean piece of parchment paper. Place the dough onto the parchment paper and flour both the dough and the rolling pin. Roll out the dough to be about 1/4″ thick. Use a Linzer cookie cutter and cut out as many Linzer cookies as you can, making sure to have an even number. Place the middle piece cut out into half of the Linzer cookies, removing the middle piece of dough. Remove the scraps of dough around the cookies and set aside (to be re-rolled again). Repeat for the remaining dough. You should get about 25 cookie sandwiches.
- Chill the dough again: Place the parchment paper with the Linzer cookies onto a baking sheet and into the freezer to chill while you preheat the oven to 350F.
- Bake the cookies: Place the cookie sheets into the oven and bake for 12-14 minutes, or until the edges are lightly golden. Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to cool for 10 minutes.
- Fill the Linzer cookies: Spread about 1 tsp of vegan Nutella onto the back of one of the Linzer cookies that doesn’t have a hole in it. Place another Linzer cookie on top (the one with the cut-out middle) and sandwich together. Repeat for all of the cookies.
- Serve and enjoy! Sprinkle with powdered sugar and enjoy!
Notes
Gluten free: You can use gluten-free 1:1 baking flour if you need gluten free!
Nut-free: For nut-free, you can swap in an equal amount of oat flour for the almond flour.
Storage and freezing: You can freeze these cookie sandwiches already made in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
