A chocolaty treat that’s spooktacular. Kids can enjoy rolling and cutting out the shapes, just like regular sugar cookie dough, but with a fun chocolate twist. These Chocolate Sugar Cookies Bats are free of: wheat, dairy, egg, soy, peanut & tree nut free; top-8-free & vegan.
I don’t know what’s happened to me! I used to never be into Halloween. And now–look at me! It’s September and I’ve already got a Halloween recipe up.
I think part of it is the fact that I have kids. It’s always fun to do anything extra to make them smile. They love anything that looks cool–and it’s fun to come up with new variations and ways to make them excited. Basically I’m addicted to their smiles.
I’ve been intrigued by doing chocolate sugar cookies. Don’t get me wrong–classic sugar cookies (like my sugar cookie bars) are amazing in their own right. But add chocolate to anything and YASSS!!!!!!
While these cookies would be fun, and extra delicious with frosting, it only seemed fitting to use the naturally dark dough to turn them into something for Halloween. After all–the main colors of Halloween are black and orange!
I thought bats would be fun since my boys have been into Batman for quite sometime. This project really was all of our loves coming together into one thing: chocolate, cookies, Halloween, bats…you name it and we were including it.
To add extra Halloween-ish-ness, my son decided to help me roll out the cookie dough (and subsequently SNEAK it–I do have to say the dough was super delicious and almost brownie tasting) in his previous Halloween costume, Bumblebee. So, you too could do that. I always love when my kids wear their costumes all year round, instead of just rocking them for one night only.
Also–you could do the fun googly eyes like I did, to make them more kid friendly, but you could also do little dots of red for more of a scary/beady/Halloween look. Plus, I have yet to find store-bought eye balls that don’t have soy, in case that’s an issue for you. Thankfully, that’s one of the top 8 allergens my son can actually have. For some red dots for the eyes, you could use this allergy-friendly buttercream recipe, and dye it red.
Either way–I hope this helps you have a fun, new Halloween tradition. Happy (early!) Halloween to everyone. 🙂
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- ¾ cup (one and a half sticks) vegan butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 flax egg (1 Tablespoon ground flax seed mixed with 2 and ½ Tablespoons warm water)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 and ½ cups gluten-free flour (spoon & leveled)
- ¾ cup cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if your gluten-free flour blend already has this)
- Pinch of salt
- fine mesh strainer
- Rolling pin
- Bat cookie cutters
- Candy eye balls
- In a stand mixer, with the paddle attachment, place all of your dry ingredients, except for the flour and cocoa. Using a fine mesh strainer, shift the flour and cocoa powder into the dry ingredients. I typically don't go to this trouble, but cocoa can tend to ball up, and since you will have no frosting to cover these cookies, you want the batter to be even and fine with no lumps.
- Give all the dry ingredients a minute of mixing on low speed.
- Gradually add all of the wet ingredients. Stir until everything is incorporated.
- The dough will be sticky. Cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge to chill for one hour.
- Uncover the dough, and sprinkle a clean surface with cocoa powder. (You don't want to do traditional flour, as it will leave white spots on your dough.) If needed, dust your rolling pin with cocoa powder too.
- Roll out the dough to uniform thickness, about ¼ inch thick (unless you like a different size).
- Cut the shapes out and gently place them on a greased baking sheet.
- Bake at 350 for just 7-8 minutes. (Time may vary depending on the thickness and shapes of your cookies.) The cookies will still look soft when you pull them out. Your best indicator is your nose. When you start to smell them, get them out! If you leave them too long, they'll be too hard. Allow them to cool on the pan 1-2 more minutes, and then carefully transfer to a wire wrack to finish cooling.
- Once they are thoroughly cool, apply your choice of eye balls (or red frosting for red beady eyes). You can stick the eyes on with coloring gel, or simply with honey or maple syrup.
- Store in a air-tight container when not serving.
DON’T FORGET TO PIN IT SO YOU DON’T LOOSE IT! DON’T FORGET TO CHECK OUT MY OTHER ALLERGY-FRIENDLY PINTEREST BOARDS.
Looking for other Halloween tips and treats? Check out my other posts:
Spider Sugar Cookie Bars (Gluten, dairy, egg, soy, peanut & tree nut free; top-8-free; vegan)
Allergy-friendly Monster Eye Balls (Gluten, dairy, egg, peanut & tree nut free; vegan)
Frankenstein Krispies (Gluten, dairy, egg, soy, peanut & tree nut free; top-8-free; vegan)
8 Safe Trick-or-Treating Ideas PLUS Eight Top-8-free Candies
It’s hard to find experienced people in this particular subject, however, you seem
like you know what you’re talking about! Thanks
You’re very welcome!
Hi! Thank you for sharing. Found your recipe on Pinterest. Just recently found out my daughter has allergies to milk, eggs and wheat. So finding good recipes is very difficult. I gave your recipe a go and it was amazing! But, the only thing I had a problem with was as soon as I gave it the 2 mins to cool in pan after taking it out the oven was it crumbling when transferring to my dry rack 🙁 some survived so that was good because the flavor is awesome and I know my kids will love it! Any suggestions to why that could happen?
So glad you found my site. Mine didn’t do that, so I’m not positive what could have happened. Did you spoon and then level your flour? Too much flour could have caused them to be too dry. Did you chill your dough? What butter did you use? I used Earth Balance Buttery Sticks, that could make a difference too. Also, cooking them too long could dry them out too much. My guess would be to watch how you measure the flour, be sure to chill them, and then cook them like a minute less than you did (your oven probably varies from mine) and then don’t let them stay on the pan as long. Best of luck!