Black Cocoa Cat-Shaped Cookies (Vegan)

Black cocoa cat cookies on parchment paper.

4.62 from 13 votes

Black Cocoa Cat-Shaped Cookies (Vegan)

Adorable, vegan, black cocoa cat cookies with crisp edges, a slight chew, and subtle bitterness balanced out by the sugar. They're decorated using vegan royal icing with my favorite recipe linked down in the notes. Feel free to swap in regular butter, milk, and royal icing if there are no dietary dairy restrictions.

Prep Time15

Cook Time8

Decorating time30

Total Time1 8

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: cookies

Calories: 119kcal

Author: Bianca Fernandez

Cost: $2.96

Ingredients

Dry ingredients:

1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp black cocoa powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp fine sea salt

Wet ingredients:

½ cup dairy-free unsalted butter melted, room temperature. see notes, but use high quality brands like country crock or miyokos!
¼ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup brown sugar light or dark; packed
1 tsp vanilla extract
2-4 tbsp dairy-free milk

Decoration for face:

vegan royal icing see recipe notes below. or use melted vegan milk/dark and white chocolate (dye the latter pink or red with oil-based food coloring)

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Instructions

Make the cookie dough:

In a medium bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients: 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour, 1 tbsp cocoa powder, 2 tbsp black cocoa powder, ½ tsp baking soda, and ¼ tsp fine sea salt.
In a large mixing bowl, stir the melted and cooled ½ cup dairy-free unsalted butter¼ cup granulated sugar, and ¼ cup brown sugar until combined. Scrape bottom of bowl. Add 1 tsp vanilla extract and mix again.
Dump in all of the dry ingredients until there are no dry spots. If the dough is crumbly, slowly add 2-4 tbsp dairy-free milk until it comes together. The finished dough should be thick.

Bake cookies:

Preheat oven to 350°F/177°C and line two baking trays with parchment paper or silicone mats.
Use small cookie dough scoop to gather dough (about 1 ½ tablespoon each). Shape dough into ball, then place onto lined baking tray. Lightly flatten with palm of your hand or bottom of a cup. This will be the cat's head.
For the ears, take ½ tsp of dough and shape into a triangle with your fingers Place the ear on the upper left or right side of the head and repeat for the other ear. Place cats about 3-4 inches apart. They will not spread much while baking.
Bake for 10-13 minutes. Cookies should look slightly puffy and soft in the center with set edges. They will not brown because of their black color.
Be careful to not over bake so they don't get crispy! They will continue cooking when cooling on the pan.
Let cool on pan for about 5-10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack. Let cool completely.

Decorate black cats:

Use pink, yellow, and black colored vegan royal icing (recipe in notes below). Place into small piping bags and cut a small tip for each one. Have a toothpick or cookie scribe on hand to help you move the icing in the direction you want as you decorate the cookies.
First, start with the eyes using the yellow royal icing: outline the eyes by piping 4 dots that you can connect into a circle. After connecting the circle for each eye, move onto the next cat. This allows the yellow outlines to somewhat dry, allowing you to flood the middle with the remaining yellow icing.
After piping the eye outlines for each cat, flood the circles with the yellow icing. While that dries, use the pink royal icing to add the noses and inner ears for each cat.
Take black icing and pipe whiskers on the left and right sides of the cat's face. Finally, using the black icing, add the pupils to the cat's eyes within the yellow circle. Leave a small perimeter of the yellow around the pupils as pictured in my photos.
Enjoy!

Notes

Make sure to use high quality vegan dairy brands. When I was developing vegan cookie recipes, I had SOOOO many cookies come out like CREPES, even though I kept adding flour to the dough. This is because some vegan butter brands have high water to fat content, so they baked into very flat cookies. I recommend vegan butter brand like Miyokos and Country Crock.
I used this recipe for the vegan royal icing and I skipped the optional vegetable glycerin. It actually makes a lot of royal icing, so I already had a bunch of it stored in my freezer! It only takes about 10 minutes for it to thaw.
Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.

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