When I was little, my mom and I used to spend the weekends before Christmas in the kitchen, making all sorts of different cookies and gingerbread. While my mom is a passionate baker, I prefer cooking and don’t really bake a lot. But this year, I decided to make vegan Christmas cookies for the first time, and give them away to friends.

I made 5 different kinds, and these vanilla moon cookies were among everyone’s favorites. Luckily they are easy to make, so I might even whip up another batch before Christmas.

Ingredients:

• 280g (gluten-free) all purpose flour
• 100g finely ground almonds
• 60g brown sugar
• 1 package vanilla sugar
• 0.5 tsp vanilla bean powder
• 200g margerine (room temperature)
• for the topping: 1 package vanilla sugar, powdered sugar

Instructions:

1. In a big bowl, mix the flour, almonds, sugar, vanilla sugar and vanilla.
2. Add the margerine in small portions and knead into the dough with your hand.
3. Form the dough into 1 to 3 rolls (depending on the length of the rolls) of a diameter of about 3cm. Wrap a strip of baking paper or something similar around it and place in the fridge for an hour or so.
4. After at least 1h, preheat the oven to 180°C, take the rolls out of the fridge one by one and cut into slices of about 1cm. Take each of the slices and roll it into a little sausage in your hands, then gently shape into a moon and place on a baking sheet.
5. Bake for 12 – 15 minutes, then take them out of the oven and sprinkle with vanilla sugar and powdered sugar. Let them cool on a rack.

Inspired by Zucker & Jagdwurst.