Not-So-Spooky Jack-o-Lantern Cookies | Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free & Grain-Free

It’s October and we’re starting the month with these adorable, not-so-spooky Jack-o-Lantern Cookies made with just a handful of health-forward ingredients that you more than likely already have in your pantry. They are grain-free, gluten-free, dairy-free and refined sugar free and the frosting sandwiched between the cookies is made with just three ingredients with an optional pumpkin spice add on.

I love these easy roll-out-cookies!

Did you know that cashew butter works so beautifully as a substitute for butter in these cookies? My original recipe for roll out cookies uses butter but I’ve been wanting to make a dairy-free version for my dairy-free friends out there and Artisana’s Organic Cashew Butter was the perfect ingredient choice for it. Their Organic Cashew Butter is made with just one ingredient… you guess it: raw organic cashews. It’s the creamiest cashew butter in all the land and you can find it in a normal size jar or if you’re like me and use it for so many recipes then you can get it in an 8 pound tub. Yum! (use code KRYSTENSKITCHEN at checkout)

You don’t need any special pumpkin cookie cutters for this - whichever pumpkin shaped cookie cutter you have will work great for these sandwich cookies. Just remember when you’re rolling out the dough and cutting out cookies and giving some of them faces that you keep an even number of cookies to make sandwiches and if you happen to have lucky number 13 then you get an extra one to eat.

Besides ingredients for the cookies you need a pointy butter knife, a pumpkin cookie cutter, rolling pin (I LOVE this one!) and you can optionally add natural orange food coloring if you’d like. (This is the one I like.)

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INGREDIENTS

Cookie

3/4 cup cassava flour

1/2 cup almond flour

1/2 cup coconut sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/4 cup Artisana Organics cashew butter

Filling

1/3 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)

1/3 cup cashew butter

2 Tablespoons maple syrup

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spices (optional)

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add all the dry ingredients for the cookies to a bowl and mix. Add in wet ingredients and mix well. You may find it easier to use your hands to do this. It might seem dry but mix it together and it will come together into a nice ball of dough. Roll cookie dough out to 1/4 an inch. Cut out pumpkin cookie shapes and place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. On 1/2 of the cookies, cut out two triangles and a mouth with a knife. Use the left over dough from each pumpkin face to roll out and cut out any extra cookies. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

Once cookies are out of the oven, allow them to cook on the cookie sheet for 5-10 minutes. Carefully place each cookie on a drying rack to finish cooling. Once cooled, make frosting for the middle of each sandwich cookie.

Mix pumpkin puree, cashew butter and maple syrup together. You can add a natural orange food coloring if you’d like. (This is the one I like) If you want to add a teaspoon of pumpkin spice mix (cinnamon, nutmeg, clove etc) to the filling for some added pumpkin spice vibes do it!. Once mixed, spoon some of this frosting onto a cookie that doesn’t have a face then place a pumpkin face cookie on top and smoosh it together so that some of the orange frosting comes through the eyes and mouth. Store in fridge if you make them ahead of time otherwise frost them as you want to eat them. Enjoy and happy October!

To see a video of this recipe being made, click here or watch the video below. 

For more delicious recipes check out my cookbook Eat Real Food. It has 75+ recipes featured and everything is gluten free and dairy free. Most recipes are paleo and Whole 30 compliant. It also has a delicious dessert section, too! Order here.