Cookies filled with a lemon & ginger custard {vegan}

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Happy Monday!

I feel like I’ve been saying this a lot recently but – I’d been wanting to make cookies like these for the longest time! See, that’s how my brain works. I’m super lazy but I also want to do everything at the same time and sometimes I really want to make a recipe and kinda complain about it to myself daily, and only after months I actually accomplish it. SOOOOOO. Here are my very pretty cookies filled with a lemon and ginger custard! For the cookie recipe it took me 4 different tests and I think these are pretty good, especially because I refuse to use vegan butter so they’ll never have that perfect melt-in-your-mouth shortbread texture anyway. But if you fill them with the custard and keep them in the fridge, the texture will be even better! Plus I added almond flour to the dough for a nutty taste and crunchier bite. Delish!

COOKIES FILLED WITH A LEMON & GINGER CUSTARD {vegan}
by Marta Giaccone

Recipe
7-8 cookies
prep time: 10 mins, cooking time: 27 mins, total time: 37 mins

Cookies
1 cup / 150 gr flour
¼ cup / 25 gr almond flour (made by finely blending/milling almonds)
pinch baking powder
pinch salt
1 tsp lemon zest
3 tbsp / 45 ml light oil
2 tbsp / 30 ml liquid sweetener
2 tbsp / 30 ml plant-based milk
powdered sugar (for dusting)

Method

1. In a medium bowl combine all dry ingredients (flour to lemon zest), mix, then add the liquid ingredients.
2. Mix with a spatula, then transfer dough onto a lightly floured working surface. Knead it until it comes together.
3. Preheat oven to 350°F/180°.
4. Roll the dough out to about 3-4mm / 1/8 inch (it’s a good arm workout!), cut out discs with a cookie cutter and, in half of the discs, cut out a smaller circle. Place discs on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Gather the scraps and the “holes” together, warm it up with your hands, shape it into a ball and roll out again. You should get 7-8 full discs and 7-8 circles.
5. Bake for 14-15 minutes, until the bottom becomes slightly golden.
6. While the cookies cool, prepare the lemon-ginger custard (recipe below). If you’d like, dust the circles with powdered sugar.
7. As soon as the filling is ready, place a generous tbsp over every disc, then top with a circle. If you have some custard left, eat it by the spoonful!
8. Now they are ready but, personally, I think they taste better cold from the fridge, so I let them cool at room temperature and then transfer them to an airtight container in the fridge. They keep for a few days.

Lemon-ginger custard
1 cup / 250 ml plant-based milk
25 gr corn starch
pinch turmeric
1 tbsp sugar
peel of 1 lemon, cut out or grated
one large knob of ginger, chopped or grated
seeds from ½ a vanilla pod

Method

1. Add starch and turmeric to a small bowl, whisk to combine, then add enough milk (a couple tbsp) just so you can create a smooth paste. Too much liquid will create lumps.
2. Pour the rest of the milk together with sugar, lemon peel, ginger and vanilla seeds and pod (or, if you’d like, add pod here and seeds after straining) to a small pot and bring to a boil.
3. Let simmer on low heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, then strain (squeeze out all the juice from the vanilla pod) and put back into the same pot over low heat.
4. Whisk again the starch-turmeric paste, then pour it all at once into the pot and start whisking vigorously. The mixture should thicken up in about 30 seconds to a minute. Keep whisking for a total of 2 minutes, then take off the heat.