These bite-sized treats are fun and perfect to satisfy a crunchy cookie craving.
Before we dive into the recipe, allow me to share with you a truly wonderful charity; The Buddy Bag Foundation.
Imagine you are a child; one in an unhealthy or dangerous situation of abuse or war. Through various organizations, help arrives and you are whisked away to safety, but it happens quickly. Perhaps too quickly to pack night clothes, a favorite book, or your beloved stuffed animal.
While you are now safe, nonetheless you find yourself in a strange place. Frightened and uncertain.
Enter The Buddy Bag Foundation, Karen Williams, and her passionate and ever-growing team of Buddy Bag Brigade volunteers.
While traveling in Australia, Karen Williams was inspired by an article about The Alannah and Madeline Foundation which has delivered more than 70,000 Buddy Bags to children in emergency care in Australia since 2007.
Karen realized there was a tremendous need for something similar in her home country, the UK. With the blessings of the Alannah and Madeline Foundation, Karen founded The Buddy Bag Foundation in 2014. Since then, over 20,000 bags have been provided to children in care.
100% of the money raised, goes directly into supplies of the Buddy Bags. What goes into a Buddy Bag you ask? Quite a lot!
The Buddy Bags are tailored to suit babies and children according to age groups and cater specifically for children aged 0-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12 and 13-16 years old.
-Night Clothes/Pyjamas
-Undergarments
-Socks
-Age appropriate books, coloring books, and crayons
-Photo Frame
-Stuffed Animal (volunteers hand-knit these!)
-Essential toiletries
-Uplifting positive messages
-Postcard to write to Buddy Bags if they desire
The bag and contents are something they can call their own. Something to provide comfort and a sense of security and hope during challenging and unpredictable times.
This is a basic, simple, vegan sugar cookie recipe. Although I rarely use vegan processed foods that I can’t make in my own kitchen, I experimented with various fats and decided vegan butter worked most consistently for this particular cookie.
That said, this recipe is:
-Fast
-Easy
-Freezer friendly
-Vegan
-Dairy-Free
-Egg-Free
To make these bites, I used small alphabet cookie cutters.
These were perfect and made lovely, bite-sized letters when baked for 6 minutes.
To make round cookies, make a 1.5 cm ball of the dough, then press flat, and press a dip in the center, and bake for 10 minutes. The dip will prevent the cookie from developing a higher dome after baking.
Cookies can be kept in the freezer for up to two months.
Buddy Bag Bites (Vegan Alphabet Sugar Cookies)
Dry Ingredients
- 250 grams Plain Flour (All Purpose)
- 100 grams Vegan Sugar
- 4 grams Baking Soda
- 1.5 grams Salt
Wet Ingredients
- 100 grams Vegan Butter
- 30 grams Vegan Milk Substitute I used Oatley Barista
- 4 grams Vanilla Extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/170C Fan/Gas Mark 5/350F
- With a hand mixer, blend the vegan butter and sugar. Then add the vanilla extract and blend another 10 seconds.
- Shift the flour, baking soda, and salt in bowl.
- Add the vegan butter/sugar mixture and the dry ingredients together. Add the vegan milk and mix with hands to form a ball.
- Roll the dough between two pieces of parchment paper. Roll to 1/2 centimeter of thickness.
- Using the small cookie cutters, cut out the letters and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. You may need to use an instrument to push out the dough from the cookie cutter and onto the tray. I used the pointy end of a wooden chopstick.
- Bake for 6 minutes and leave to cool 5 minutes before removing from tray.
- If making round cookies, roll into a ball about 1.5 centimeters in size, then press flat on the cookie sheet, slightly depressing in the middle of the circle. This will keep the cookie from developing too high a dome when baking.
- Bake the round cookies for 10 minutes and allow 5 minutes to cool before serving.
