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Halloween Cut-Out Sugar Cookies – Low Carb and Gluten-Free

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Low Carb Cut-Out CookiesIf 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.

Low-carb cut-out cookies

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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.

Gluten-free cut-out cookies

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.

Low Carb Cut-Out Cookies

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Holiday Cut-Out Sugar Cookies – Low Carb and Gluten-Free
Ingredients
Cookies:
  • 2 cups almond flour Honeyville
  • 2 tbsp GF oat flour I used Bob’s Red Mill OR 1 tbsp coconut flour
  • ½ tsp xanthan gum
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 6 tbsp butter softened
  • ½ cup Swerve Sweetener or granulated erythritol
  • 1 large egg
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
Icing:
  • 4 tbsp butter softened
  • ¾ cup Swerve Sweetener or powdered erythritol
  • 3 to 5 tbsp heavy cream room temperature
  • ½ tsp vanilla
  • 3 drops red food coloring paste
  • 3 drops yellow food coloring paste
Instructions
  1. For the cookies, in a medium bowl, whisk together almond flour, oat flour, xanthan gum and salt.
  2. In a large bowl, beat butter and erythritol until creamy. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract, and then beat in almond flour mixture until dough comes together.
  3. Turn out dough onto a large piece of parchment paper. Pat into a rough circle and then top with another piece of parchment. Roll out to about 1/3-inch thickness. Place on a cookie sheet and chill in refrigerator for at least an hour.
  4. Preheat oven to 325F and line another baking sheet with parchment. Using pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter, cut out cookies and lift carefully with a small, offset spatula or knife. Place cookies at least 1 inch apart on prepared baking sheet. Re-roll your dough and cut out more cookies (if your dough gets too soft to work with, you can put it in the freezer for a bit to harden up).
  5. Bake cookies 12 to 14 minutes, or until they are just starting to brown around the edges. Remove from oven and let cool on pan.
  6. For the icing, beat together butter and powdered erythritol. Add cream, 1 tablespoon at a time, until desired consistency is achieved. Stir in vanilla and food coloring. Spread on cooled cookies.
Recipe Notes

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.

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Nutritional Disclaimer

Please note that I am not a medical or nutritional professional. I am simply recounting and sharing my own experiences on this blog. Nothing I express here should be taken as medical advice and you should consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. I provide nutritional information for my recipes simply as a courtesy to my readers. It is calculated using MacGourmet software and I remove erythritol from the final carb count and net carb count, as it does not affect my own blood glucose levels. I do my best to be as accurate as possible but you should independently calculate nutritional information on your own before relying on them. I expressly disclaim any and all liability of any kind with respect to any act or omission wholly or in part in reliance on anything contained in this website.

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Comments

  5. 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

    Reply

  12. 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.

    Reply

  15. 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 🙂

    Reply

  16. 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

    Reply

  18. 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?

    Reply

  19. “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.

    Reply

  22. 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.

    Reply

    • 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.

      Reply

      • 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.

        Reply

        • ZSweet definitely has more cooling sensation. Do be careful with the xanthan in the icing…just a little or it may gum things up!

          Reply

  27. 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!

    Reply

  29. Unfortunately the website you refer to is no longer working. Any chance you can post the recipe again? I’d love to make these. Thanks!

    Reply

    • I know, I just found that out! 🙁 Here’s the recipe (I don’t have time to format it right now for the blog).

      Halloween Cut Out Cookies:
      Cookies:
      2 cups almond flour
      2 tbsp GF oat flour (I used Bob’s Red Mill)
      ½ tsp xanthan gum
      ¼ tsp salt
      6 tbsp butter, softened
      ½ cup granulated erythritol OR sugar
      1 large egg
      ½ tsp vanilla extract

      Icing:
      4 tbsp butter, softened
      ¾ cup powdered erythritol OR powdered sugar
      3 to 5 tbsp heavy cream
      ½ tsp vanilla
      3 drops red food coloring paste
      3 drops yellow food coloring paste

      For the cookies , in a medium bowl, whisk together almond flour, oat flour, xanthan gum and salt.
      In a large bowl, beat butter and erythritol or sugar until creamy. Beat in the egg, and vanilla extract, and then beat in almond flour mixture until dough comes together.
      Turn out dough onto a large piece of parchment paper. Pat into a rough circle and then top with another piece of parchment. Roll out to about 1/3-inch thickness. Place on a cookie sheet and chill in refrigerator for at least an hour.
      Preheat oven to 325F and line another baking sheet with parchment. Using pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter, cut out cookies and lift carefully with a small, offset spatula or knife. Place cookies at least 1 inch apart on prepared baking sheet. Reroll your dough and cut out more cookies (if your dough gets too soft to work with, you can put it in the freezer for a bit to harden up).
      Bake cookies 12 to 14 minutes, or until they are just starting to brown around the edges. Remove from oven and let cool on pan.
      For the icing, beat together butter and powdered erythritol or sugar. Add cream, 1 tablespoon at a time, until desired consistency is achieved. Stir in vanilla and food coloring. Spread on cooled cookies.

      Reply

  30. Is guar gum the same as xanthate gum? Down 7 lbs. in 2 weeks without even trying!!!, thanks for coming into my life, you might have saved it…

    Reply

  32. I made these into Raspberry Linzer Cookies. I cut out 24 stars, half with a cut out hole in the middle. When cool, the cookies with the holes I sprinkled with powdered Swerve, covered the other cookies with sugar free raspberry jam then put them together. It made 12 sandwich cookies at 3.7nc each. For the raspberry jam, 150g frozen raspberries cooked with erythritol , 150g chopped cranberries cooked with erythritol and some raspberry extract or 6TBS of Sugar free raspberry jam are all about equal.

    Thanks so much for all your yummy baking!

    Reply

  34. TWO QUESTIONS:
    Can you use regular food coloring?
    Also do you thing this would work as a crust.
    You always seem to know the answer.
    You are like St Anthony to me . He helps me find also of thing lol.

    Reply

  35. Do you think oat fiber would be a good sub in place of the oat flour? I bought a bag to make your french toast and was looking for other recipes to use it with. These and the sugar cookie bars look so good. I just wasn’t sure if it could sub in place of the oat flour. Thank you so much! I can’t wait to make these!

    Reply

    • Are you asking if they do or saying that they do? We certainly didn’t find it to be so and you can see from the comments that no one else did either.

      Reply

      • Mine was not a question mine was why did mine taste like leather… A friend and I got together very excitedly to make a batch each of these cookies and follow the ingredients to a T and went to taste them at my next eating opportunity and was very disappointed they have no taste and the rather chewy. I am used to sugar cookies having kind of a crispiness and these deathly do not… I made a similar cookie with other things added to it and no xanthan gum and that seems to be the only difference… Any suggestions? They taste so blah but I don’t even want to bother frosting them.

        Reply

        • Sorry, I don’t know what to say. They have been well received by my friends and family. I’d suggest you use the recipe you like better.

          Reply

          • Carolyn we just made them the kids and I and they loved them! I have to work on my frosting had to order the powder swerve online :/ i used granualted Swerve but def a great cookie! Can i add cocoa to make chocolate sugar cookies?

          • How much would you suggest on cutting back? I am so happy I flund your site and recipes! Thank you so much!!!

  38. I have gluten free corn flour, cashew flour, & coconut flour. which one should I use? I could’t find gluten free oat flour. I am going to make these and the magic bars in a the morning! Thanks Heidi

    Reply

  39. Been looking for good cookie recipes that my “sugar free” family can enjoy. So glad to have found your site!!! What a treasure trove of ideas, can hardly wait to try them all. Made these today with my kids, and …almost… decided it would be a “one and done” recipe since the dough was so fussy (as the dough warms to room temperature, even during just the time it takes to cut a few out, it gets creamy and impossible to manage, especially by the kids). Then … we tasted the first batch. Oh, my goodness, they are AWESOME! Dead-on sugar cookie flavor & texture!!! So buttery and delicious, they don’t even need the frosting. Managed the “fussiness” by using the freezer … a lot. Froze the rolled out dough as recommended; then re-froze the cut dough before removing the individual cookies (made it possible to simply peel them off the parchment without damaging them); then *re*-froze the pan of cutouts before placing it in the oven. Worked like a charm, and the results are so worth it! We will be making these again tomorrow, this time coloring part of the dough to make them a little fancier for Christmas. Kids can’t wait! 🙂 (Using a traditional 3″ cutter set and rolling the dough to about 1/4″, this easily made about 30 cookies. What a low-carb coup!!!) Thank you for this awesome site. I’ll be coming back … a lot!

    Reply

    • The dough is tricky, it’s just the nature of the beast with low carb and gluten-free. But SO glad you liked them enough to work at it!

      Reply

    • You can forego the xanthan gum but you may find that your cookies are more crumbly. This recipe does not require any leavening agent.

      Reply

  41. Hi Carolyn, I would love to make these cookies for my daughter. Could you tell me what sugar/no sugar toppings you used to accent the cookies. I didn’t know if they have sugar-free ones or ones you use that you would suggest. Thanks so much!

    Reply

  42. Carolyn, these are sooooo good! My 20 yr old grandson even liked them! These are definitely going to be made for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.!

    Reply

  43. These worked well for us and have inspired me to look for new cookie cutters. Ever since my husband changed to low carb lifestyle, cookies have been harder to do. These worked – even though I did not use the recommended almond flour – we do our own in a grinder/mill. Keeping the dough well chilled was key. Also, I almost had the graininess that you mentioned in your icing recipe (and I was careful to have butter softened) and the thing that seemed to change from grainy was my final addition of Swerve, which I had premeasured and been putting in gradually as I made it. Actually, just having some good icing ideas that don’t need confectioners sugar has been a huge step forward for our family as well.. Of course, we did use green icing with St. Patricks Day just around the corner!.

    Reply

  44. Hey Carolyn!! I need a good vanilla wafer recipe for low carb banana puddin. How would these cookies work for that do you think, texture wise?

    Reply

  45. I made a lazy version of it (no xantham gum etc…just almond powder, butter, swerve, vanilla, egg) and it turned out just as I expected 🙂 super sweet sugar cookies. I’m now motivated to buy some cookie cutter and coloring. I shared the recipe in Japanese on my site: http://cupcaketoons.com/devancouver/swerve-sweetener-%E3%81%A7%E4%BD%8E%E7%B3%96%E8%B3%AA%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A5%E3%82%AC%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AF%E3%83%83%E3%82%AD%E3%83%BC%EF%BC%88%E3%82%A2%E3%82%A4%E3%82%B7%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B0%E4%BB%98%E3%81%8D/ (the URL is a bit weird because they are in Japanese characters…)

    Thank you Carolyn~~~

    Reply

  47. Hi Wondering what is the best natural food colouring brand is – that you trust?
    The cookies taste great on their own but want to try with the icing for the kids.

    Thanks,
    Saskia

    Reply

  48. This is a wonderful recipe, thanks for sharing! This also makes a great base for a fruit pizza. I have my second batch in the oven right now. 🙂

    Reply

  49. I hate asking this, but here goes: I just realized that 2 of my kids won’t eat the treats made with swerve. The older of the 2 explained she doesn’t like the erythritol. If swerve didn’t exist what would be your next best substitute for this? The rest of us have zero issue with swerve

    Reply

    • If it’s the erythritol that’s the issue, then I have no suggested sweeteners because I prefer erythritol based ones. I hear good things about Bocha Sweet but i have yet to try it myself.

      Reply

  50. Hi Carolyn, I was wondering if you have experimented with different size cookie cutters with this sugar cookie cutout recipe. Before my diabetic days I baked cut outs and definitely noticed differences of how the cookies bake related to cut out size and thickness. I collect large copper cutters and have zero experience yet with baking these cookies so thought I’d ask.
    Thanks for making life sweet!

    Reply

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