The Vegan Biscuit Jar (recipes and no-palm-oil brands)

Vegan Oatmeal Cookies (Rainbow Nourishments)

Everyone likes a nice biscuit, whether it’s a quick snack, or something to dunk (and sometimes fall in!) your cup of tea. But just like most things in the modern world, the powers-that-be have made a tasty treat problematic: factory-farmed ingredients, palm oil, refined sugar and plastic packaging.

But no need to be a party pooper. You can still enjoy tasty biscuits that are vegan (with no palm oil or refined sugar) and either made yourself, or brands in shops that tick all the good cookie boxes!

Keep these biscuits away from pets, due to not-safe ingredients like nuts, spices, chocolate etc. Also don’t feed stale or hard biscuit crumbs to garden birds or wildfowl, as they could harm or choke.

Bin citrus peels as (like tomato/rhubarb/allium scraps), acids could harm compost creatures. And if using tinned ingredients, fully remove lids or pull ring-pulls back over holes before recycling, to avoid wildlife getting trapped.

What’s With England and Biscuits?!

Everyone loves a biscuit in England! Whether that’s a simple Rich Tea or homemade recipes. The favourite flavours in England are very different to abroad. That’s a shame, because actually flavours from North America and Australia/New Zealand are arguably nicer, and make use of healthy ingredients like oats.

The most popular biscuit flavours in England:

Rich Tea and Hob Nobs
Chocolate digestives
Custard creams
Gingernut
Bourbon chocolate
Scottish Shortbread
Jaffa Cakes (if you call them biscuits)

The most popular biscuit flavours in North America are:

Oatmeal raisin
Peanut butter
Chocolate chip
Sugar cookies (snickerdoodles are cinnamon-sugar)
Oreo (these contain palm oil)

In Australia and New Zealand, a popular biscuit is Anzac (Rainbow Nourishments), a mix of rolled oats and golden syrup, with optional dessicated coconut.

How to Bake Your Own Vegan Biscuits

From the book Simply Vegan Baking

This is obviously the cheapest choice, avoids packaging and also the tastiest. If you don’t feel you have the confidence to bake a cake, start with cookies. They are super-simple to make, you just then roll the dough into flattened balls, and bake for 10 to 15 minutes (just watch carefully, as they burn quickly).

These jammy vegan biscuits (The Veg Space) are made with rice flour and normal flour, and filled with cherry jam.

Tips for Perfect Vegan Biscuits!

Double Choc Raspberry Cookies (Rainbow Nourishments)

Note most vegan cookies use butter, so choose Lurpak or Flora (both are free form palm oil). For best results, go for the ‘block’ version rather than margarine:

The best plant milks to use are oat and soya, each recipe has different egg replacements, or sometimes they don’t need one! Try to use brown sugar, it tastes nicer and is better for you.
Rest the dough for at least 30 minutes before baking, and remove them (slightly) underbaked, so they firm up as they cool but avoid burning.
Vegan baking is a science, so follow the recipe for good results! Get some measuring cups! Vegan chocolate chips are hard to find in stores, so just chop some quality vegan chocolate, it all melts anyway.
Bake on parchment paper or a silicone mat (don’t grease the pan, it causes cookies to spread).
To make biscuits last longer, keep them in the tin with a slice of bread. They absorb the bread’s moisture, to help stop them going stale.

Here are a few super-simple affordable recipes to start you off. Try a few. Then when you have your favourites, you can make a batch each week, and keep them in a biscuit tin, for when they call!

Anthea from Rainbow Nourishments is a trained baker, who offers lots of lovely simple recipes for vegan cookies, none need egg replacer. Try her recipes for:

3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (Rainbow Nourishments) are simple to make, just be sure to choose an organic brand of peanut butter without palm oil. These biscuits use almond flour (sold in health shops) to replicate buttery texture, sweetened with maple syrup.

The only other ingredients you need are maple syrup and almond flour (almond flour is easy to make (or choose European-sourced for better sustainability, to protect bees!)

Buy Good Vegan Biscuits (no palm oil)

There are only a few brands on sale that are both vegan and without palm oil, so it may be easier to learn how to bake your own. But if you do wish to buy them (or need to buy some for wholesale), here are better brands.

Recycle packaging at supermarket bag bins, if your kerbside doesn’t recycle.

Freyas is a small brand of vegan cookie mixes, created by a former Bake Off contestant from Yorkshire. There are four mixes that are all easy to make and bake. Two mixes are for cookies (choc chip marble and choc chip brookies). The other two are for sticky toffee pudding and lemon drizzle cake.

Rhythm 108 is a Swiss brand that is vegan, free from palm oil and sold in plastic-free packaging (the wholesale individually-wrapped biscuits are ideal for cafes and restaurants, to serve alongside drinks). Flavours include: