Chocolate and Black Olive Shortbread Cookies (Vegan)

The easiest vegan chocolate shortbread cookie made with olive oil, cocoa, and chocolate. The optional addition of black olives is interesting and sophisticated.

My friend Gracie requested a recipe to make for bringing to Colleen’s potluck, something that is good for sharing. When I asked whether it should be sweet or savoury, she left that decision to my discretion. I am presenting something that is both – a salty-sweet combo, but perhaps not one that you’ve tried before. To Colleen and everyone else at the judo club, I hope you enjoy these cookies. The recipe is here should you want to make chocolate and olive shortbread cookies in your own homes.

These chocolate and black olive shortbread cookies are for sophisticated tastes. Don’t balk at the olives. They add a salty punch and complement the dark chocolate well. These shortbread cookies are made with olive oil instead of butter, which furthers the subtle floral aroma.

Chocolate and olive is not as unusual a combination as might be first assumed. Both are dark, tannic, and intense. Alike, but also starkly different. There is balance between bitter, sweet, and salty. Behind this, chocolate and olive elucidate the undertones in each other.

The easiest and fastest cookie recipe

Making this recipe couldn’t be simpler. Mix the dry ingredients together, then add the wet ingredients (and chocolate and olives) to form a dough. Divide the dough into flat disks, then bake. That’s it! No taking out the butter to soften, no creaming, no chilling the dough. You can be done in as little as 20 minutes.

Admittedly, this is not the prettiest looking cookie, but it is super simple and super tasty!

Developing this recipe

I first had chocolate and black olive shortbread cookies at Forno Cultura in Toronto. Pleasantly surprised by the flavor combination, I archived it to my mental repertoire of things I want to bake at home.

My quest to develop a vegan olive oil shortbread has went on for a while now. Alas, my previous attempts had all been too tender. Think Russian Teacakes or 绿豆酥（Chinese mung bean pastry） texture instead of a dunk-able biscuit. Some of my previous attempts were so tender that the cookies crumbled when you tried to pick them up.

I found Deb Perelman’s olive oil shortbread recipe delicious in its own right. However, ideally, I had wanted something akin to slice-and-bake shortbread instead of shortbread that is baked in a slab and then cut. The chocolate and black olive shortbread combo also had burrowed a place in the back of my mind.

Somewhere along the way, I had a revelation of how to solve my crumbly cookie conundrum. The solution for a sturdy olive oil shortbread is twofold. First, use granulated sugar instead of confectioner’s sugar. The added cornstarch in confectioner’s sugar makes for a too-tender crumb. Second, and more importantly, add a small amount of moisture to the cookie dough. This can be in the way of water, nut milk, or other liquids.

Why adding water is necessary to this olive oil shortbread recipe

Most recipes for butter cookies do not contain additional liquid, so why would you want to do that here? The answer has to do with the water content in butter. Butter is 16-18% water, but olive oil is 0% water (being 100% fat). (Note that vegan butter also has water. If you take a look at the ingredients on the back of a package of vegan butter, it will consist of oil, water, and some emulsifier.)

Some water is necessary to bind flour together. All those times you hear people fretting about overmixing, they are trying to avoid gluten development. However, some gluten development is necessary for structure in baking cookies and cakes. Furthermore, gluten only forms when water particles combine with flour proteins.  In other words, zero water equals zero gluten development equals a too-tender cookie that falls apart.

FAQs

• What kind of flour should I use? All-purpose flour is best, but this recipe is not fussy so pastry flour and even bread flour will work. If you wanted to, you can also use whole grain flours such as rye, spelt, or whole wheat. I have not tested this recipe with gluten free flour but I do not see why it would not work!
• What kind of olives should I use? The best type of olives to use is cured black olives. These usually come in plastic wrapping and are cured without brine. Make sure you pit and slice them. The easiest type of olives to use are sliced canned black olives. These are already pre-pitted and sliced so prepping is a breeze. If you use canned black olives, make sure that they are well-drained, and you are not introducing additional liquid into the dough. I also recommend breaking the pre-sliced olives into smaller pieces with your fingers.
• Do I need to add olives? Olives are not for everyone and that’s understandable! If you do not want to add olives, replace with an equal amount of chocolate chunks/chips – so the total amount equals 50g. This makes a good vegan double chocolate cookie.
• Can I slice and bake or use a cookie cutter for chocolate olive shortbread cookies? The chocolate chunks make slicing very difficult, so if you were to slice and bake these cookies, I would recommend omitting the chocolate chunks. It is not impossible to roll out the dough and use a cookie cutter. However, the dough is quite crumbly so I would not recommend doing so.
• How should I store chocolate olive shortbread cookies? These cookies can be stored at room temperature and should keep well for days and up to a week or more. In fact, these chocolate olive shortbread cookies are even better after a day or two as the texture evens out.
• Can I freeze the cookie dough? Yes, this cookie dough can be frozen. For ease of baking I recommend freezing in the shape of flattened disks and separating these disks between parchment paper.

This vegan shortbread cookie recipe is for everyone

I am a big advocate of the proposition that even non-vegans should bake vegan and eggless recipes. Ethical reasons aside, vegan and eggless recipes scale so much better than their non-vegan counterparts. When I make a small batch of cookies, I really do not want to be measuring 1/3 of an egg much less 1/3 of an egg yolk. And while there are certainly circumstances where you might prefer making a big batch for sharing or for freezing, small-batch baking should not compromise on taste or flavor.

This vegan chocolate and olive shortbread cookie recipe is a winner as far as low-effort recipes go. I hope that it is widely enjoyed and shared.

Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote

Chocolate and Black Olive Shortbread Cookies (Vegan)

The easiest vegan chocolate shortbread cookie made with olive oil, cocoa, and chocolate. The optional addition of black olives is interesting and sophisticated.

Prep Time10 minutes mins

Cook Time20 minutes mins

Course: Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: American, Italian

Diet: Vegan

Keyword: Baking, Chocolate, Cookies

Servings: 10 cookies

Ingredients

• 85 g flour
• 15 g cocoa
• 40 g sugar
• 50 g olive oil
• 5 g water
• 30 g chocolate chunks or chips
• 20 g sliced black olives chopped (or cured black olives, chopped small) optional (see notes)

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 F.
• Mix the flour, cocoa, and sugar together. Add olive oil and water and mix until evenly hydrated. Add the chocolate chunks and sliced olives and form into a dough. If using canned sliced olives, make sure that the olives are very well drained and you are not adding additional liquid into the dough. See notes
• Roll the dough into balls (around 1 tablespoon) and then flatten into disks slightly less than 1 cm thick. Set these disks out on a baking tray lined with parchment paper, making sure that the disks do not touch one another. However, note that the cookie dough will not spread in the oven (and will expand only very slightly) so there is no need to leave too much space in between. There should be 8-10 cookies.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes. When done, the bottom of the cookies should be slightly golden. The tops of the cookies will still be somewhat soft when you take them out of the oven, but will harden as they cool. Once cooled, the cookies should be crunchy and sandy like a butter cookie.

Video

@hellenshouse

ONE BOWL easy vegan chocolate shortbread with black olives! This may be the easiest cookie recipe ever. Made with OLIVE OIL instead of butter. Easy to scale and fast – a small batch cookie recipe for when you need to satisfy a chocolate craving like right now. They’re salty and sweet, deeply chocolatey, and only a 3 or 4 on the low effort scale. The olives really bring an interesting touch but I understand if it’s too much for normie taste profiles. These cookies keep really well and are even better a day or two later as the texture evens out. Tag a grace or someone who should make these cookies! #veganbaking #vegancookies #oliveoil #shortbreadcookies #doublechocolatecookies #chocolatecookies #blackolives #savoryandsweet #saltysweet #veganrecipes #vegantiktok #oliveoilcookies #easycookierecipe

♬ All of Me – Billie Holiday

Notes

*If using canned sliced olives, I recommend either chopping the olives into small pieces before adding to the dough or using your hands to break the sliced olives apart into small pieces less than 1 cm big (unless if you prefer a soft cookie, in which case this can be skipped). This is important for canned sliced olives because of their moisture content. If the olive pieces are too big, they will add too much moisture to the cookies and the texture surrounding them will not be crunchy. For cured olives, the size of the olive pieces is less important.  

**If not using olives at all, you can replace with an equal amount of chocolate chunks/chips. If omitting black olives, add a pinch of salt to the dough.