Vegan Chocolate Orange Linzer Cookies

The Christmas countdown is on, and what better way to get in the festive spirit than with COOKIES.

Light and crumbly cookies, with orange zest, filled with a mixture of orange marmalade or vegan Nutella. Can’t go wrong with chocolate orange this time of year. They can be made gluten-free, just make sure to use a gluten-free flour blend.

These cookies can be ready in less than 20 minutes so there’s no stopping you from making them, get your festive bake on!

What is a Linzer cookie?

Linzer cookies usually use the same dough used in a Linzertorte, but instead, the dough is formed into two sandwich cookies filled with a jam or preserve.

At Christmas time, I love to indulge in Chocolate orange, it’s one of my favourite Christmassy flavours (alongside ginger/gingerbread).

For an ultimate chocolate orange flavour, I added in fresh orange zest into the biscuits along with orange extract.

I opted for orange extract as opposed to the juice from an orange as the orange extract is alot more pungent and is stronger, therefore you don’t need as much. If you added orange juice, it will change the consistency of the dough requiring more flour which can make the cookies dense.

In the middle of the chocolate cookies, I added in a vegan Nutella. The Nutella spread I used is the Natures Store which I pick up in Sainsbury’s.

I have listed a few of my favourite vegan-friendly Nutella’s below for you which would be a perfect filling in these cookies.

My top 3 favourite vegan-friendly ‘Nutella’:

Preparation: 5 minutes

Baking time: 9-10 minutes

Makes: Approx 15 sandwich cookies

Level: Easy

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Ingredients for the cookies

200g of plain flour
5 tablespoons of maple syrup
100g of coconut oil (melted)
1 large orange (zest only)
1 teaspoon of orange extract

Ingredients for the fillings

Orange jam/marmalade
Vegan Nutella (listed my fave ‘Nutella’s’ above)

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Method (cookies)

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees c fan, and line two baking trays with greaseproof paper.

2. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, maple syrup, melted coconut oil orange zest and extract. Bring together with your hands until a dough forms. Add more flour if too wet or maple syrup if too dry. You want it to be a smooth dough.

3. Roll out the dough in between two sheets of greaseproof paper. You want the dough to be around 1/4 inch in thickness. Using a 2 inch fluted/ round or Christmas themed cookie cutter, cut out the shapes. Take half of the cookies and cut out a 1/2 – 1 inch circle or small cookie cutter shape from the interior of the larger circles, creating a doughnut shape. These will become the top of the cookie. Place all cookies into the lined tray.

These cookies do not spread.

4. Pop the cookies into the oven and bake for 9-10 minutes until golden in colour. Once golden, remove from the oven and place onto a cooling rack.

Allow to cool fully before filling.

Method (fillings)

1. Fill cooled cookies with orange jam/marmalade and vegan Nutella by spreading them on the bottom of one cookie and place another on top. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Store in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week.