Mini Strawberry Shortcakes | Plant-based & Gluten Free

Summer is here, strawberries are in season, and that means I need strawberry shortcakes in my life. And these aren’t just any strawberry shortcake recipe, they are gluten free, vegan, only 3 main ingredients AND they are mini! Mini strawberry shortcakes that are perfect for picnics, brunches, sides and parties! I just love this strawberry shortcake recipe so much. It gets me in my feels. It gets me SO ready for summer.

This full recipe makes about 12 shortbreads, and it takes only minutes to prepare. And since it only uses almond flour, maple syrup and melted vegan butter as the main ingredients, it’s super simple, super allergen friendly and perfect if you want a (literal) quick bite. Ok ok, I know I’m selling these REALLY hard, but I just love them so much! Full deets on the recipe is below.

Ingredients for these mini strawberry shortcakes

Like I listed out above, what you will need for this strawberry shortcake recipe is super simple. It’s just made up of a few ingredients and pantry baking staples. Plus, if you use the right flour, it’s pretty forgiving recipe when you add in substitutions. Here’s everything you need to make it:

For the shortbreads:

• 110 grams almond flour – this is about 1 cup, densely packed. I know I play hard and fast with this rule, but in baking, I find if you measure your flour by weight, everything else falls really perfectly into place. Especially for this recipe, which uses so few ingredients, I’d recommend weighing this part if you can! You can find my favorite scale here.
• 1 & 1/2 tbsp melted vegan butter – y’all know this by now, but I am living for Country Crock Plant Based. The price is right, it’s easy to find, and it works really well in baking.
• 1 & 1/2 tbsp maple syrup – another one of my favorite ingredients! For the strawberry shortcake recipe, I like to use a liquid sweetener to keep the cookie soft, shortbread-like but also still moist. Maple syrup is my favorite, but I’ll list out other substitutions you can use below!
• 1/2 tsp baking powder – pretty self explanatory but very necessary! These cookies do not rise much, but the leavener helps bring an extra lightness to the shortcakes as they bake!
• 1 pinch of salt – this brings out the flavor of the sweetness! People always ask me about salt in sweet things, and I say to just think of it as a flavor enhancer. It’s truly the best.

For the toppings:

• 1/4 cup coconut cream whipped topping – normally I would encourage you to make everything from scratch, but making a vegan whipped topping is HARD man, and you can buy so many easy plant-based options at the store. To make your life easier for this recipe, I recommend using a whipped topping like Trader Joe’s Coconut Whipped Cream or something similar. You just use a small dollop on the mini strawberry shortcakes and you are good to go!
• 2 tbsp fresh mint leaves – keep the leaves whole if you can. And try not to skip this! The fresh mint gives such a refreshing, fun additional flavor and truly brings the whole recipe together.
• 6 whole strawberries cut in halves – I can’t make a whole blog post on how to make strawberry shortcake and omit the strawberries! Since we are making 12 shortcakes, I like to use at lead 1/4 of a strawberry or 1/2 on top, so I recommend using at least 6 berries. And the rest you can snack on while you’re baking, duhhh 😉

How to prepare the strawberry shortcake recipe

Prepare for the easiest recipe of all time. This blog post might net out to being pretty boring, because it’s just that simple. But that’s my whole MO right? Right 🙂

To make the shortbreads:

• Preheat your oven to 350F.
• Whisk together the almond flour, salt and baking powder. Make sure to give this enough of a mix that everything is evenly combined.
• Add in the melted butter and maple syrup and mix until a cookie dough texture forms. It might not look like it will come together at first, but the almond flour will begin to absorb the liquid and a dough will begin to form! You can also use your hands to help it come together.
• Shape the dough into 12 small circles or cubes and place them evenly on a parchment lined baking sheet. Smash them down just a bit with your fingertip so that the strawberry shortcake toppings will have a place to go.
• Bake the cookies for 15-20 minutes at 350F, or until they are slightly golden on the edges.

To assemble:

• Top with a dollop of the coconut cream.
• Add a sliced strawberry and a sprig of mint to a toothpick. Move the strawberry and the mint about 1/2 of the way up the toothpick, then use it to “pierce” the shortbreads.
• This will hold everything together and make it easy to serve or grab! You can either store in the fridge until you’re ready to eat, or serve immediately.

Tips, tricks and substitutions

With a recipe like this, it’s hard to stray too far from the original, but there are definitely some substitutions, tips and tricks that I recommend as you put it all together.

Substitutions you can use for the strawberry shortcakes:

• No almond flour? You can substitute coconut flour or oat flour, but both will be slightly more crumbly. I prefer almond flour above all for this recipe, just because of the soft, delicate texture it gives the bake! I will say, please do not use all-purpose flour for this, it will not yield the same results! Maybe I need to make a whole post on flour because goddamn, it’s such a mystery ingredient sometimes haha.
• No maple syrup? Use a liquid sweetener as a substitute. This can be honey, agave (my personal favorite), light corn syrup or simple syrup. The key is that it needs to be liquid, otherwise you can play around with the ingredient!
• No vegan butter? That’s totally fine. You can use any dairy butter in this recipe and it will work the exact same way!
• Unfortunately you cannot substitute in baking soda for the baking powder. Baking soda will react of the acid in the maple syrup and negate some of the sweetness in the recipe, which we don’t want!
• If you don’t prefer to use the vegan whipped topping, you can use any store bought whipped cream (I love Cool Whip, I don’t know why). Or you can follow the quick whipped cream recipe I use for the filling in my Zebra Cakes! Totally up to you.
• No mint? Try basil instead! It’s a different kind of freshness, but still very refreshing.

Tips & tricks for this recipe:

And lastly, here are my favorite tips for making this recipe come together super quickly:

• When mixing the dough, use a fork first then switch to your hands. Use a fork first to whisk together all the ingredients, then as soon as the mixture starts to become crumbly, switch to your hand to start working it into a dough. This will cut your mixing time in half and will help the almond flour absorb all the moisture in the ingredients!
• As you form the cookies, use a slightly wet hand. This helps the dough not stick to your fingers as you shape it!
• Give the cookies a slight indent in the center before you bake them. This will give the strawberries and cream a nice pocket to sit in when you assemble everything together.
• If you want to assemble the cookies ASAP, toss them in the fridge to chill for about 5 minutes when they are out of the oven. This will help your cream not melt everywhere when you assemble!

And that should be everything! But if you have any questions, please let me know in the comments! And if you make them and share a pic, please tag me on Instagram or Pinterest. I would love to see what you made!

If you also made it and loved it, a five star review is the best way to help me show up in the SEO algorithm, so I’d really appreciate a rating! This also helps other people find the site and supports me ~fo free~ but y’know, no presh 🙂 In the meantime happy baking bbs!