Substitute for Butter/Margarine in Cookies?
My sister's daughter is allergic to milk, soy, and nuts and peanuts. This rules out butter and margarine in baking. I've been baking breads from Maggie Glezer's Blessing of Bread book, with excellent results - the recipes are written with a Jewish audience in mind, so most of them use oil instead of solid fats.
The problem that I haven't cracked is how to adapt a conventional cookie recipe to use vegetable oil, coconut oil or lard (or a combination) instead of butter or margarine. I send over a lot of sweet breads and cakes, and even the odd doughnut, but cookies end up too runny or too crumbly. We've only found two cookie recipes, one for Jewish Kichel and another for molasses cookies, that really work. It would be nice to have some alternatives, especially for the Christmas season.
Does anyone have suggestions for substitutes or alternative recipes?