Halloween Cookies (gluten-free and vegan)

It's my favorite time of the year again! Halloween is all about having fun, baking and indulging without all the stress and consumerism (well, not THAT much) of Christmas.

This year I bring you an easy and delicious recipe, free from gluten and vegan-friendly. If you feel creative and inspired feel free to decorate these cookies with Halloween sprinkles, or even make your own icing. I prefer though to use melted dark chocolate because it's a healthier alternative...but I'm sure kids will love adding some spooky candy eyeballs. ;-)

Hope you all have a great All Hallow's Eve, have fun, eat some candy, brew some magic potion and cast a spell!

Receta en español en la web de El Granero Integral

Halloween Cookies (GF and V)

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups almond flour.

1/4 cup chickpea flour.

1/3 cup agave syrup.

1/4 cup melted coconut oil.

A pinch of salt.

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon.

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger.

A small pinch of nutmeg.

Melted dark chocolate, to decorate.

Directions

In a large mixing bowl mix with a hand whisk all the dry ingredients: almond flour, chickpea flour, salt and spices. Pour in the melted coconut oil and agave syrup, mix with a silicone spatula until a cohesive dough forms.

Roll the dough into a ball, place a sheet of parchment paper on your working surface and transfer the dough on top of that paper; make sure the paper is cut to the same size of your baking sheet to easily transfer the un-baked cookies. Press down the dough to form a disc and, using a rolling pin, roll it out until it's around 0.5 cm thick. If the dough sticks a little bit to your rolling pin simply place another sheet of parchment paper on top of the dough or lightly grease the rolling pin with coconut oil.

Transfer the rolled dough to the baking sheet and let it set in the freezer for 30 minutes. It is very important that the dough is really cold and firm to easily cut out the dough and transfer the cookies without them deforming or breaking out.

Preheat oven to 170 ºC and cut out the cookies using your favorite Halloween cookie cutters like bats, pumpkins, ghosts, cats, etc. Don't forget to form another ball with the leftover dough, roll it out and cut more cookies until all the dough is used up.

I recommend to keep the cookies in the freezer while you are cutting out the rest.

Bake for 10 minutes, until golden brown and always keeping an eye so they don't brown too quickly.

Transfer cookies carefully (using a thin spatula) to a cooling rack. They will harden as they cool.

Decorate with melted dark chocolate using a very small piping tip or some kind of pastry decoration tools (e.g: chocolate pens, deco pens, etc).