To Make the Vegan Shortbread Cookies

• In a medium bowl sieve together the plain white flour, cornstarch, icing sugar and sea salt. Mix well to combine.
  250 g plain white flour, 1 tablespoon cornstarch, 75 g icing sugar, pinch fine sea salt
• Cut the vegan butter into cubes and add to the flour mixture. Using your finger tips, pinch the vegan butter into the flour mixture until the mixture is coarse, sandy and crumbly.
  175 g vegan butter
• Tip the mixture out onto a counter and knead a few times to form a rough ball (don't worry, it will be very crumbly at this stage).
• Slice the ball of dough into two and wrap each ball in cling film/saran wrap. Place in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 170 °C and line two cookie sheets or baking trays with baking parchment. Lightly dust a counter and unwrap one of the balls of dough. Roll out the dough to around half a centimetre thickness and use a cookie cutter to cut out as many cookies as you can. Transfer the cut cookies to the lined cookie sheet.
• Gather any off-cut dough into a ball and wrap again in cling film/saran wrap. Place in the fridge to chill. Meanwhile remove and unwrap the second ball of dough and repeat the process, rolling out to half a centimetre and cutting out as many cookies as possible. When the two baking sheets are full of cookies with a little gap between each one, place in the preheated oven to bake for 20 minutes.
• While the cookies bake, make the spiced sugar by mixing together all the ingredients in a small bowl. As soon as the cookies are removed from the oven, sprinkle with the spiced sugar while they're still hot. Alternatively just sprinkle the still-hot cookies with caster sugar, for plain cookies. Allow the cookies to cool fully on a wire cooling rack before serving.
  2 tablespoon caster sugar, ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon allspice, pinch ground nutmeg, pinch ground ginger
• Optional - If you'd like to make sandwich cookies, transfer the vegan buttercream to a piping bag and pipe a small amount of the vegan buttercream onto an inverted cookie. Sandwich with another cookie. Place in an airtight container and chill in the fridge until the buttercream is set firm before serving.
  ½ batch vegan buttercream frosting