Calico Sugar Cookies
The CUTEST calico cat cookies…made vegan! Peanut butter and chocolate give these sugar cookies their look and flavor.
- Prep Time: 40 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Yield: 12ish cookies (depending on your cutter size)
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Ingredients
BASE:
- 3/4 cup vegan butter, slightly softened
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons unsweetened almond milk
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or vanilla bean paste)
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- pinch salt
FOR THREE COLORS:
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 1 and 1/2 tablespoons peanut butter powder
- 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
FOR FINISHING:
- 1 cup vegan chocolate chips, melted
- 1 tablespoon peanut butter
- pinch salt (optional, but good!)
Instructions
- Add your vegan butter to a large bowl and beat with a handheld mixer on medium until smooth and fluffy, 1-2 minutes. Alternatively, you can use a stand mixer!
- Add your sugar, and beat on medium until light and fluffy, another 2-3 minutes, scraping the bowl as needed.
- Add the milk, cornstarch, and vanilla, and beat on medium until combined, about 30 seconds.
- Add 1 cup of flour, your baking powder, and salt, and mix again until combined.
- Add the second cup of flour and mix only until just combined. You really don’t want to overmix here, as we have more mixing to do!
- Separate your dough into thirds, each third going in its own bowl.
- In one third, add your final tablespoon of flour. Mix well to combine, but avoid overmixing.
- In the final third, add your peanut butter powder. Mix well to combine, but avoid overmixing.
- In another third, add your cocoa powder. Mix well to combine, but avoid overmixing.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Take the three different colored doughs and form them into small, irregular patches (see photos). Gently press the patches together on the parchment paper to create a calico pattern.
- Place a second piece of parchment paper on top of your dough, and roll the dough out evenly until it forms a flat, cohesive sheet, ensuring the patches stay connected but maintain their distinct colors. The dough should be about 1/4-inch in height.
- Keep dough covered and place in the fridge to rest overnight.
- The next day, cut out your cookies using your favorite cat cookie cutters. You can re-roll the dough to get more cookies out of your batch, but the look will be more tortoise-like than calico! Still v cute.
- Place your cut cookies back on the parchment-lined baking sheet and put in the freezer while you preheat your oven to 350 degrees F with a rack in the middle of your oven.
- Once your oven is preheated, place 6 cookies on another parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving a good 2 inches between the cookies as they will spread.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the cookies start to brown at the edges.
- Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely. Continue baking the rest of your cookies.
- Meanwhile, melt your chocolate, peanut butter, and pinch of salt together in a microwave-safe bowl in the microwave, or in a method of your choosing.
- When the cookies are completely cool, flip and spoon a thin layer of the melted chocolate on top. Allow to set in the fridge.*
Notes
*If you want your chocolate to be more stable (and less melty) at room temperature, you’ll need to temper it. If you want to temper, skip the peanut butter in the chocolate mixture. I’ve used this method in the past, and it works great. Add the sprinkle of salt to the chocolate once it’s spread on the cookies. Otherwise, keep the chocolate-coated cookies in the fridge until ready to serve.
Recipe adapted from Nora Cooks and inspired by a photo I saw on Pinterest years ago!
Find it online: https://www.fooduzzi.com/2024/12/vegan-calico-sugar-cookies/