Crispy Crunchy Vegan Cinnamon Cookies with Olive Oil

These vegan cinnamon biscuits (cookies) are butter-less, eggless, and made with olive oil. Slightly reminiscent of a Greek koulouraki, but only just. They are deliciously crunchy and perfectly cinnamon-y without the spice being overbearing.

I was looking for a recipe for cinnamon biscuits (cookies for my American friends) like the ones we used to eat here in Greece when I was little. They were gorgeous and nowadays, for some strange reason, they are quite hard to find. They were buttery and cinnamon-y, but for the life of me I haven’t been able to find a copycat recipe anywhere. What my search did come up with is several recipes for cinnamon koulourakia. Koulourakia are Greek biscuits in various flavours, often baked around Easter time. I have a recipe here for you to see what I’m talking about. I didn’t want to make koulourakia but seeing as some of them were suitable for fasting, I got the idea of going down the vegan path.

So I made some adjustments to a classic recipe and created my own version of a cinnamon biscuit or cookie. What I like about these is that their colour is much lighter than a cinnamon koulouraki, and the spice isn’t overbearing like it can be in other cases where cloves and nutmeg are also used. The oil is barely there, but adds a hint of fruitiness. The strength of your olive oil will make a difference. In my first batch I used the oil we have from the Mister’s village, which is so strong it’s basically olive juice! It comes from the family trees and the Mister’s parents actually harvest the olives themselves. Talk about the real thing. Anyway, this is amazing stuff but the taste is really prominent in any baking. So I tried another batch with regular (but good quality) olive oil from a supermarket. This was much better and gave a lighter result.

The method is dead easy, and since the dough is quite crumbly, the best way to shape them is by rolling into balls and flattening them with your fingers. You get crinkly edges, but these are in no way like crinkle cookies. I was tempted to call them that, but then read that crinkle cookies are soft. These are not soft. They are fabulously crunchy. Maybe even cookie is the wrong word? How about wafer? As I’ve said before, the confusion when it comes to biscuit/cookie terminology is something serious.

So enough blabbing. Here is the recipe. Try them and let me know what you think. By the way, do you prefer crunchy or soft cookies? Or a cookie that is both?