If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck, right? And if it looks like a sugar cookie and tastes like a sugar cookies, it’s a sugar cookie, right? Or not. Perhaps I shouldn’t call these sugar cookies, since they don’t have a single grain of sugar in them. False advertising and all that. But it’s a whole lot better than calling them Halloween Cut-out Erythritol Cookies. Somehow that just doesn’t roll of the tongue as nicely. And let’s face it, erythritol is not a pretty name. It may be the best sugar replacement on the market, one that doesn’t spike my blood sugar even a little bit, but erythritol sounds like something you clean your kitchen sink with. It sounds like some awful chemical, when really it’s something that all of us eat all the time, as it’s found in fruits and fermented foods. It will forever irk me that something I rely on so heavily now, that I think is much, MUCH healthier than sugar, has a name like “erythritol”.
However, it’s October, the month of spookies and ghosts and bags upon bags of sugar. When Easy Eats Magazine requested a gluten-free Halloween recipe, I gave some thought as to what might tempt my children away from those bags of sugar. I’ve never been a huge fan of sugar cookies myself, I much prefer crispy-chewy cookies filled with chocolate and nuts. But my kids are typical kids and their eyes get big and round with excitement at the sight of frosted sugar cookies. And as I have developed a pretty great low carb cut-out cookie recipe, I decided it was time to test drive it and see how it held up to my really lousy cookie-decorating skills.
I know so many bloggers who are absolute stars at cookie decorating. I see their creations and I am amazed that such works of art are edible. I have neither the patience nor the inclination to do that, I generally just slap some frosting on, spread it around, and try not to make too much of a mess. And thankfully, my kids are of the age not to really know the difference. They thought these looked amazing.
A few words of note about the frosting. Mine is made with confectioner’s Swerve, and it worked out fairly well. But I have learned that if my butter isn’t properly softened before I add the Swerve, it gets a little bit of a clumpy texture that no amount of beating will smooth out. My impatience took over in this case…my butter was close to soft but not quite there, and my frosting was a tiny bit on the grainy side. Still, I have to say that for me, the end result was really pretty great. What you see here, my friends, is the height of my cookie-decorating talents.
And what matters most is the taste, right? These were fantastic. Again, I am not a huge fan of sugar cookies, but these tasted EXACTLY like you’d expect. A low carb, gluten-free cut out cookie that rivals the conventional version. What more can you ask for?
Carb count: I got about about 10 large cookies out of this recipe and they each had 4.9 g of carbs and 1.7 g of fiber. Total NET CARBS = 3.2 g.
For the full recipe, please see my article on Easy Eats Magazine.
I am Carolyn, a writer, runner, mother and diabetic. I am also the evil mastermind behind this blog. I live for food. Join me in my experiments in creating delicious low carb, gluten free recipes. 
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Cute, cute, cute! My kids are crazy about cookie decorating. They do all the work for me.
Awww these cookies are adorable, I am off to check out the recipe now!
These are so cool! And your cookie decorating is way better than anything I could imagine doing.
Carolyn – I didn’t see a nutritional analysis at the recipe, but then again I don’t remember if you list that with your recipes?
Sorry! I don’t do a carb count for them on Easy Eats, but I will amend that for my article here. I got about 10 quite large cookies out of it, and they are about 4 g of carbs each.
Hey Carolyn – these look fantastic… cannot wait to try and maybe use recipe at Chrsitmas time too! Do you have a carb count?
Thank you!
Lisa
I just added that to my post, right at the bottom. Sorry I forgot that part!
These are cute as can be!
Adorable!
these are ADORABLE. Just so stinkin cute!
These are adorable–I cannot believe that there’s no sugar in them! I love seeing how you reinvent sugary recipes.
All I have to say is YAY for Sugar Cookies!
Love these Carolyn! Happy wednesday!
I passed the Pillsbury version of these in the supermarket the other day, and I thought, “Guess I’ll never be having that again.” I should have known better! These look tasty and cute. Way to go! I can’t wait to try these and adapt them a million ways.
Which food coloring paste do you use?
These cookies do look amazing!!!
I used Wilton for these ones.
These look so fun Carolyn – can’t believe they’re low carb. You did a great job decorating them!
Yum these look amazing!! Definitely going to try now that I have both forms of Swerve. I would love to see what you eat on a daily basis….not to be stalker-ish but I go back and forth about low carb eating and running….like “will I have enough energy?” etc. In the past I don’t think I included enough fat so I always felt very dizzy and low energy on my runs fueled by low-carb low-fat. Thanks! Love, love the blog
Hi love this recipe. Please post it on your site so I can add it to my ZipList I love ZipList and use it everyday! Thanks
Since I did this one for Easy Eats, I need to wait a little while before I post the full recipe on my site. Is that okay with you?
You bet! Worth the wait :0)
These are so cute! I bet you’d never know there’s not a drop of sugar in them.
My mom may get a care package this Halloween. These are so, so cute! And don’t apologize at all for your decorating skills! They sure beat out mine. I’d probably let Dudette do the decorating and then no one would see how bad I really am. Actually, for my mom, that’s an excellent plan.
And, yes, they could have come up with a better name for the sugar replacement. What’s up with that?
“It will forever irk me that something I rely on so heavily now, that I think is much, MUCH healthier than sugar, has a name like “erythritol”.”
Haha — I was just thinking this as I was perusing low carb recipes for the holidays! I sometimes tell people my ery-sweetened goodies are made with Truvia (not a huge fib because that’s an ery/stevia product) so I don’t sound like I’m feeding them an exotic assassin’s poison from a Bond film!
Thank you so much for this recipe. No matter how great I feel after kicking sugar and refined carbohydrates for the better part of a year, brightly colored cookies call my name.
Dear Carolyn, your cookies look adorable! I love how festive they are. Have a beautiful weekend, Catherine~
These are amazing!!! I love the fact that they are adorably cute!
Does the frosting have a noticeable cooling effect in the mouth? I’ve made erythriol icing before and found the cooling to be really overwhelming.
Hi Kari…not if you make it with Swerve. Swerve has a lot less cooling sensation than any other erythritol based sweetener that I know of. But if you are particularly sensitive to that, then it might also be good to add a really tiny bit of xanthan gum (a pinch, really), to help lessen the effect. For me, I notice it with other erythritol sweeteners, but not with Swerve.
Thanks Carolyn. I will try the xanthan gum. I bought two boxes of ZSweet powdered sweetener online and I’d like to try to use it if possible.
ZSweet definitely has more cooling sensation. Do be careful with the xanthan in the icing…just a little or it may gum things up!
Adorable! And I bet the frosting is fantastic too.
I think these look adorable! And tasty!
Ingenious! You are definitely not inept with decorating cookies – I take that title, thank you! I have ZERO patience in dessert decorating category. All I care is how it tastes!
The cookies looks great.
We made these these Christmas cookies and the kids loved them!! Used sprinkles to decorate b/4 we baked them which upped the carb count. But kids had a blast and I was so surprised that they actually crisped up a little (more like traditional cut-outs than I thought possible with almond flour). THANKS! They are long gone, and now we are going to try them again with some icing!
hey, just wondering: can i replace the oat flour with anything? very sensitive to oats
Sure. Do about 1/2 the amount of coconut flour, so 1 tbsp. That should work, although the texture will be slightly firmer.
Did so, and made them into Hamentaschen (3 cornered pastry eaten on the Jewish holiday of purim) and filled them with chocolate pb and homemade SF raspberry jam! they were a hit!
Fantastic idea!