A Boo-tiful and Delicious snack for Halloween!

It’s that time of the year when we can all just drop the act and be the bog witches and wizards we are! And what better way to celebrate Halloween than with a set of delicious Spooky Gluten-free and Vegan Biscuits? They’re terribly fun and monstrously mouth-watering! Perfect for a Halloween party, you’ll be sure to leave your friends flabberghosted 😎

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Halloween: the origins

I love Halloween, it’s one of my favourite holidays. I love its dark spooky and cosy vibes and the fact that it’s in the misty season of autumn. But most of all, I like reading about Halloween’s history and origins and all the traditions that come with it! So If you feel like you need a history refresher of the festivity that inspired these Spooky Gluten-free and Vegan Biscuits: here’s one for you.

WARNING: This is a looong post – what can I say, love some good creepy stories. If you want to skip the history and folklore and jump to the Spooky Gluten-Free and Vegan Biscuits recipe, click the button below. Consider yourself warned ☠️

Halloween is a holiday celebrated each year on October 31st. It has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain which was celebrated the end of harvest and the beginning of winter. The Celts believed that on Samhain, the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead was thin. The spirits could cross over into our world. Spoooky!

To ward off evil spirits, the Celts would light bonfires, wear costumes, and leave offerings of food and drink for the dead. They also believed that on Samhain, it was possible to predict the future, so they would perform various divination rituals.

Eventually, In the 8th century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as All Saints’ Day. A day to honour all saints and martyrs. The evening before All Saints’ Day became known as All Hallows’ Eve, which eventually evolved into what we know today: Halloween.

Today, Halloween is a much more secular holiday, but many of the old traditions still survive. People still dress up in costumes, party and dance, prepare traditional food, gift snacks to “spirits” and carve pumpkins!

Stingy Jack: the Halloween legend

Now that you know where Halloween comes from, I’ll give you another one important bit of legend connected to this festivity. Have you ever wondered why we collectively decided that we needed to carve pumpkins into grotesque lanterns on Halloween? The Stingy Jack‘s tale is believed to be the reason behind this weird and exciting tradition.

The legend goes:

Once upon a time, in the Irish countryside, lived Stingy Jack. A notorious evil drunkard and trickster, who through his corrupted behaviour, caught the attention of the one and only Satan. Satan, unconvinced of Jack’s reputation, wanted to see for himself if the rumours were true and went to meet him.

Jack, drunk as usual, was wandering through the countryside when he came across a body on the path. With horror, he realised that the body was Satan waiting to collect his soul. Jack knew that his end was near. So he made a last request: to have one more drink before going to Hell.

A deal with Satan

Satan agreed and took Jack to a pub, where he supplied him with as many drinks as he could take. After quenching his thirst, Jack asked Satan to pay for the drinks, but Satan – clearly – had no money. Jack convinced him to turn himself into a silver coin so that he could pay the bartender. Then Satan would change back when he wasn’t looking.

Satan, impressed by Jack’s unyielding nefarious tactics, did so. However, Jack had other plans. he shrewdly stuck the coin in his pocket next to a crucifix, preventing Satan from turning into himself again. Satan was forced to agree to Jack’s demand. In exchange for his freedom, he had to spare Jack’s soul for ten years.

The Last trick

Ten years later, Jack found himself in Satan’s presence again. He seemingly accepted that this was his time to go to Hell. But before he went, he asked Satan for one last apple to feed his starving belly. Satan, foolishly agreed again and swiftly climbed up the apple tree to pick one for Jack.

In the meantime, Jack was waiting underneath the tree to make his move. While Satan was busy picking the apple, he quickly surrounded the tree base with crucifixes. Satan, frustrated at being trapped again, demanded his release. Jack made another demand: that Satan would never take his soul to Hell. Satan, with no choices left, had to agree.

No land’s man

Eventually, the excessive drinking got to Jack who died drunk and lonely. His soul tried to enter Heaven, but was stopped and rejected because of his sinful and depraved lifestyle. He then went to Hell asking for a place, but Satan could not take his soul because of their agreement.

With nowhere to go, Jack sealed his faith as a lost soul of the Netherworld. Satan tossed Jack a little burning coal piece to light his way. Jack unable to hold the coal, carved a nearby turnip to make a lantern to carry the light. And just like that, Jack was doomed to roam the world between the planes of good and evil. Forever lost, forever unwanted. With only an ember inside a hollowed-out turnip to light his way.

Reference: patheos.com and wikipedia.org

Cool story eh? This is an Irish cautionary tale about the dangers of sin and the importance of redemption. However, in modern times, the Stingy Jack folktale allegedly became the Jack-o’-lantern tradition. We, like Jack, carve faces into turnips or pumpkins and put candles inside to light them. In the hope that they’ll ward evil spirits off and light our way through the darkness of Halloween night!

Spooky Gluten-Free and Vegan Biscuits: a delicious alternative

Before I settled on the Spooky Gluten-free and Vegan Biscuits, I researched all the traditional food that’s connected to Halloween!

There are so many amazing toothsome choices: Candy apples, caramel apples (loads of apples!) Caramel corn (loads of caramel 😋), pumpkin pies, cornbread, hot cider and popcorn balls!
I decided that I would 100% make more Cheeky Green Bean versions of Halloween food in the future. But now, I opted for simple spooky biscuits!

This recipe is vegan and gluten-free because I wanted it to be as accessible as possible. 😊 These biscuits are a great choice for people with celiac disease, gluten intolerance, or anyone who follows a vegan diet. The gluten-free flour makes them soft and crumbly which creates a great texture with the hard icing!

In this recipe, we use water-based icing. Traditionally, Royal Icing contains eggs. This recipe’s icing strips the original version back and uses two simple ingredients. Simply combine powdered sugar and water until you reach the desired consistency. That’s it 😊 It’s incredibly easy to make and can be flavoured and coloured to your liking!

Vegan Food colouring

We all know that food colouring is a bit of a minefield for vegans. Many companies use animal-derived ingredients to create these products. However, I found that green, black and orange are usually safe. That’s why we’re not adding any other colours to these Spooky Gluten-free and Vegan Biscuits. Luckily, these are more than enough to create some nice ghosts, bats and pumpkins 😁

I use Dr. Oetker Extra Strong Gels for all: Green, Orange and Black, but if you’re in the US I recommend Color Garden or Watkins. Both have a good range of vegan food colours.

Cheeky ingredients swap

• Egg: You can add a little egg yolk to the dough to make more crunchy and compact biscuits. Or add some egg white to the icing to get that full volume and softness of Royal Icing!
• Caster sugar: Instead of cane or brown sugar, which leaves a grittier and more textured dough, you can use caster sugar for a softer finish.
• Butter: I use vegetable butter in almost everything! If you prefer your biscuits to have a less earthy and more milky taste replace the butter with animal-derived butter.

Free your creativity and release the Halloween spirit with these Spooky Gluten-Free and Vegan Biscuits. Join me in the mysterious and hunting ways of Halloween baking!

Spooky Gluten-Free and Vegan Biscuits

Bean

5 from 1 vote

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Prep Time 1 hour hr

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Resting time 3 hours hrs

Total Time 4 hours hrs 15 minutes mins

Course Dessert, Snack

Cuisine American, European

Servings 15 Biscuits

Equipment

• 1 Medium mixing bowl
• Rolling Pin
• 5 Halloween biscuit cutters Optional – you can have simple circle biscuits and draw the spooky characters on with the icing 🙂
• Oven tray with baking paper
• 4 Small bowls to mix the coloured icing
• 4 Spoons
• 4 Piping bags with small nozzle Optional – you can decorate with any utensil you have at home but piping bags surely helps!

Ingredients

  

Biscuits

• 150 gr Rice flour or gluten-free flour Almond and coconut also works. Just keep in mind that they might make the dough a bit more crumbly!
• 100 gr Vegetable butter
• 50 gr Cane sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• half Lemon zest from a medium lemon

Icing

• 200 gr Icing sugar
• 2½ tbsp Cold water Quantity may vary depending on desired consistency
• 2 drops Orange food colouring I suggest using gel food colouring – inspect the ingredients and make sure they're vegan!
• 2 drops Black food colouring
• 2 drops Green food colouring
• 1 drop Lemon juice Optional

Instructions

 

Shortbread Biscuits

• In a medium bowl combine the flour, the sugar and the lemon zest. Mix well.
  
• Add the butter. If you're using vegetable butter derived from oils, make sure it's cold and not too soft to avoid the dough melting before you can shape the biscuits! Once all the ingredients are well combined, form a ball. Warp it in foil or plastic wrap and leave to rest in the freezer for 10 minutes.
  
• Preheat the oven to 160℃ on a static setting. Once the 10 minutes have passed the dough should be hard enough to hold shape but soft enough to roll it out. Dust a bit of gluten-free flour on your worktop and roll the dough out to form a sheet of 5mm circa in thickness. You can choose to have it thicker if you want, just keep in mind that it'll take a bit longer to cook! With your spooky Halloween cutters, cut out your shapes and lay them on your baking tray. If you don't have cookie cutters you can just cut the dough into circles and then create your characters with the icing 🙂 Cook for 12-15 minutes until lightly tanned. Keep the biscuits in check as they might cook faster or slower, depending on the oven you're using.
  

Icing

• Once the biscuits are fully cooked, leave to cool down for at least 30 minutes. In the meantime, let's make the icing!

  In 4 different bowls add equal parts of icing sugar. Starting with the first one, add a little water at a time until you reach a thick but malleable consistency. Then add 2 drops of food colouring to each. I used a gel-based black, orange and green food colouring leaving the 4th bowl colourless for a white colour. Feel free to choose any colour you like that matches your shapes and spooky ideas!
  
• When the biscuits are fully cooled down you can start decorating. I prefer using a piping bag but if the icing is liquidy enough you can even use a spoon and a toothpick for the details. Don't worry about being neat and perfect, if there's anything that you want to change or the icing sets too soon, it can be easily melted with a little water and shaped into place while it's still wet. This is your time to be creative, experiment and channel your inner witch!
  
• When your haunting creations are ready, leave them to set for a couple of hours, to make sure that it hardens well all the way to the core.

  Once everything is nice and dry, the spooky gluten-free and vegan biscuits are ready to be enjoyed!

  Store in an airtight container and consume within 2 days.
  

Cheeky tips

Check out our autumn-perfect pumpkin recipes 🍂

Fancy more holiday treats? Try the delicious Carnival Pastries!

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