12 Days of Christmas Cookies - Citrus Glitters (Vegan)

Posted by Nichole Leigh

Citrus Glitters

Imagine an ideal sugar cookie infused with lemon and decoarted with crunchy, glittery goodness and you'll have a pretty good understanding of the Citrus Glitter. These soft-on-the-inside-crisp-on-the-outside cookies are the perfect gift for your lemon loving friends. (In Italy.... the word lemon is transformed into the verb "limonare" that means "to make out," so perhaps these cookies will get you a little lovin' too!)

Photo courtesy of Vegan.com - My camera died last night, so I will post my own photo as soon as I'm able to revive it!

Ingredients
4 tablespoons Demerara sugar (like Domino’s Demerara Sugar)
1/2 cup non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening (like Spectrum Organics Vegetable Shortening)
1/4 cup soy milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons lemon zest (or the zest of any other citrus fruit)
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup  plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons fine-ground cornmeal (if you don’t have fine ground cornmeal, you can use a coffee grinder, magic bullet, or food processor to finely grind regular cornmeal)
1 tablespoon cornstarch or arrowroot powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt


Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line two baking trays with parchment paper.


2. Spoon Demerara sugar onto a plate and put to one side.


3. Use a hand mixer to cream the shortening and sugar until fluffy. Mix in soy milk, citrus zest, vanilla and lemon extracts.


4. Add the remaining ingredients and mix on medium speed until a pliable dough forms it will look crumbly but will come together easily in your hands.


5. Roll heaped tablespoons pf dough into balls. Press each ball into the Demerara sugar to flatten it, coating one side only. Place the cookies sugar side up on baking sheets.


6. Bake for 10-12 minutes until lightly golden at the edges. Cookies will be very soft, so allow to cool for about five minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire cooling rack to finish cooling completely.