Halloween will be here in 3 days. As I grew up in communist Romania until I was in 5th grade, I never celebrated Halloween as a child. Here in Canada most children celebrate it, usually by wearing a costume and trick-or-treating or going to a party.
My son and I looked online for him to choose his costume for Halloween. He knew he wanted a super hero costume. We looked for a veeeeeeery long time. Eventually, he was able to tell me clearly why he was refusing so many costumes. He did not want anything on his head or on his face and he did not want to hold anything. That pretty much eliminates 99% of the superhero costumes out there. So he ended up choosing a cape. Yes, just a cape :). At least is a double-sided cape. One side has the Superman logo and the other has the Batman logo.
Choosing a costume for my daughter was easy and inexpensive. I bought it at a used store. The last 3 Halloweens were quite cold here in Alberta, so I chose something warm for her to wear: a ladybug jacket with a hood. She will wear black pants and black boots to complete her costume. Easy peasy.
To go with the Halloween theme, we decorated our home with Halloween stickers, little pumpkins, skeletons, and spiders, and then we made Friendly Halloween Linzer Cookies.
Two weeks ago I bought a cute Linzer cookie cutter set as I thought it would be a nice idea to make Halloween cookies with it. The set has 6 little shapes: bat, hat, ghost, cat, pumpkin, and owl.
The cookie set came with a recipe written on its package. That recipe was the inspiration for my Friendly Halloween Linzer Cookies. As my son can’t eat foods with gluten and dairy, I had to remove them from the ingredient list.
I replaced the white sugar with coconut palm sugar, the butter with coconut oil, and the white flour with almond flour. I also increased the amount of cinnamon and vanilla extract and decreased the amount of sugar. To drop a tasty and Halloweeny orange highlight in the middle of the cookies, I used a mixture of strawberry and mango jam instead of raspberry jam as the recipe required. And finally, instead of confectioner’s sugar for dusting the cookies, I used coconut flakes ground in a food processor.
These Friendly Halloween Linzer Cookies turned out delicious. If you don’t have Linzer cookie cutters, just use regular cookie cutters and make regular cookies with or without jam. Here is an example of the cookies we made without the Linzer cookie cutters. I added jam to some of them.
A good friend of mine tasted these Friendly Halloween Linzer Cookies and she really liked them. She also noticed that these cookies dusted with coconut flakes would be great for Christmas. I could not agree more. The cookies freeze well, so you can make them in advance and store them in the freezer until Christmas. Don’t forget to use cookie cutters in shape of bells, Christmas tree, reindeer, etc.
My husband was out of town when we made these cookies and it was really hard to save some for him. The next day, we made a double batch and put one of them straight in the freezer to enjoy them on Halloween.
These Friendly Halloween Linzer Cookies are rich in:
- Biotin, vitamin E, manganese, and copper from almond flour
- Manganese, calcium, and fiber from cinnamon
- Proteins and healthy fats from the egg
- Healthy fats from coconut oil
- Healthy fats and fiber from coconut flakes
- 3 cups almond flour
- ½ cup coconut palm sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ⅓ cup + 2 tablespoons coconut oil
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅓ cup jam of your choice (I used mango jam mixed with strawberry jam)
- 3 tablespoons coconut flakes (for dusting the cookies)
- Preheat the oven to 350F.
- Mix the dry ingredients (almond flour, coconut palm sugar, cinnamon) in a big bowl.
- Beat the egg in another bowl. Melt the coconut oil under low heat. Mix the melted coconut oil with the vanilla extract and the egg.
- Pour the dry ingredients over the wet ingredients stirring gently to combine everything into a well-mixed dough. Let the dough sit for 15 minutes so the almond flour absorbs all the liquid.
- The dough will be oily, but do not worry. The cookies won't be oily.
- Spread the dough (1/4 inch thick) on a cutting board with a rolling pin and with your hands. I mostly used my hands.
- Cut the dough into shapes. If you use Linzer cookie cutters, you will end up having some full circles (they will be the bottom cookies) and some circles with shapes inside (they will be the top cookies). Place the cookies on 2 parchment-lined cookie sheets.
- Bake in the oven for 12-13 minutes until they become lightly brown on the surface.
- Remove the cookie sheets from the oven, let the cookies sit on the cookie sheets for 5 minutes to cool off, then place the cookies on a plate.
- Spread jam on the bottom cookies and cover them with the top cookies.
- If you used regular cookie cutters, you can eat the cookies without jam or you can spread a thin layer of jam on top. They are delicious either way.
- Process the coconut flakes in a food processor until they become powdery. Sprinkle on the cookies.
- Store the cookies in the fridge in an air-tight container. These Friendly Halloween Linzer Cookies freeze well, so you can make them in advance and thaw them on Halloween day.
Do you celebrate Halloween? If you do, are you making a special treat for your child for Halloween?
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I made these cookies for my three boys and they gobbled them before trick or treating! That was my trick. They didn’t each as much candy that night. Thank you Alina! 🙂
Susan, your comment makes me really happy! They are indeed delicious (and nutritious) cookies.
I made them with my daughters and my five year old pointed out to me that we can make the same cookies on Christmas as Gingerbread Men 🙂 and I thought that is a great idea 🙂 or really you could make for every holiday different shapes . My kids love the cookies and so does the rest of the family ( including Oma and Opa)
Thanks for a great receipe
Petra
Petra, that’s awesome! Making them for Christmas (or any holiday really) is a great idea, especially since they can be frozen and made in advance.