Bird-less cow-less shortbread cookies

I had set my heart on baking vegan cookies for my coworkers's Christmas presents this year because one of them had become vegan this past year. It wasn't easy because most recipes called for butter or eggs, and I refused to shop for specialty ingredients in an expensive store. I managed to find a piped cookie recipe and decided to modify it with the intention of giving away adorable little bagfuls of pretty piped cookies. However, my modified recipe was too thick to pipe even after adding a ridiculous amount of soy milk so I rolled the dough into logs and sliced them instead. This is what I ended up making:

• Bird-less cow-less shortbread cookies
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• 1 cshortening
• 3/4 cicing sugar
• 2 1/4 call-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 Tbspvanilla extract
• 1/2 csoy milk
• Handfulalmonds, toasted
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• Cream shortening with sifted icing sugar and flour. Add vanilla and soy milk and mix well. Add almonds and mix.
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• Separate dough into 2-3 portions and place onto plastic wrap. Using wrap, shape dough into logs approximately 2" in diameter. Wrap up logs and freeze until hard.
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• Slice frozen logs approximately 1/4" thick and place 1" apart on lined cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees F for 22 minutes.
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It was during my recent baking adventures that I started sifting my icing sugar regularly. This is because it settles and cakes into small clumps. If it is not sifted before using, the baked goods end up with the tiny clumps inside and look unprofessional as well as taste strange. Here is my bowl of sifted icing sugar:


After mixing all the ingredients (pre-almonds), I realized the dough was much too thick to pipe. This would not change no matter how much soy milk I added to the recipe and I am not sure if this is because I substituted shortening for butter:


In any case, I realized that the dough consistency was suitable for log rolling so I added some toasted almonds and rolled everything up. Although I don't have pictures of the logs, here is the dough after adding almonds:


The dough must be completely frozen when slicing or the almonds move around and destroy the shape of the logs. Here is what the cookies looked like after baking:


Although my presents looked nothing like I had originally envisioned, they were well received nonetheless. The cookies were just a tiny bit sweet and met my requirements for vegan ingredients. So now the last thing... Why are they called bird-less and cow-less? That's because my vegan coworker jokes that regular baked goods have birds and cows inside, referring to eggs and butter.