Vegan Frosted Animal Crackers (gluten-free)

Frosted animal crackers with a more healthy vegan twist! Gluten-free shortbread cookies with a touch of cinnamon, naturally-dyed pink glaze, and plenty of rainbow sprinkles make these do-it-yourself circus animals enjoyable to make and so yummy to eat. Good to make with children, or as a candy childhood throwback recipe!

SPONSORED BY SUNBUTTER

That is undoubtedly essentially the most enjoyable recipe I’ve created shortly. To not say they didn’t take fairly a little bit of trial and error to type out the proper crunchy cookie or the proper food-coloring-free pink frosting, however when the check batches contain candy little edible elephants and giraffes it’s someway a lot much less arduous a job. The rainbow-sprinkled zoo you’re looking at might be batch quantity seven (eight? I’ve misplaced depend…), however let me inform you they’re an ideal cookie pack/herd. So let the DIY childhood deal with copycat baking start!

How To: Selfmade Circus Animal Cookies

We’re pulling fairly just a few qualities from the unique circus animal cookies – candy shortbread cookie, refined cinnamon spice, a few of the similar creatures, and naturally the basic pink glaze and tiny sprinkles. However we’re additionally making just a few swaps and tweaks – vegan and gluten-free shortbread cookie, beet-dyed glaze, do-it-yourself with love contact, as many sprinkles as your coronary heart wishes.

Making The Vegan Gluten-Free Shortbread Cookie

I’ve a go-to grain-free shortbread recipe that I really like, nevertheless it’s not tremendous roll/cutout-able. So we veered fairly a bit away from that recipe, and ended up with a one-bowl, no-chill, simple to work with shortbread dough that’s excellent for animal crackers (and different cookie creations!) You will have:

• Natural SunButter. That’s proper, this can be a moist “buttery” shortbread recipe with out butter and even dairy-free butter as a result of we have now SunButter. Any of their creamy varieties can be wonderful right here, however personally I really like the Natural jar as a result of it’s unsweetened and salt-free. Components: Natural Roasted Sunflower Seed. That’s it!
• Avocado oil. I attempted MANY batches with coconut oil and the coconut oil solidified and sank to the underside once I rolled the dough out and made them unfold bizarre and simply…wasn’t good. Avocado oil labored 1000x higher, vegetable oil or melted vegan butter could be wonderful too.
• Cane sugar. You would strive with coconut sugar, however for authenticity’s sake I went with cane sugar.
• Agave or maple syrup. Yep, we’re utilizing a combo of sweeteners for this recipe. Honey works too if not vegan.
• Vanilla extract.
• Cinnamon and nutmeg. The normal animal cracker makes use of mace, however nutmeg is shut sufficient. And slightly cinnamon, not an excessive amount of.
• Salt. As each candy cookie wants.
• Baking powder. You’ll discover there is no such thing as a leavener on this recipe as a result of a) it’s a shortbread and b) SunButter + baking powder/soda = inexperienced cookies which is NOT what we’re going for right here.

Making The Naturally Pink Glaze

I had just a few totally different concepts for the pink coloring – berries, dragonfruit, beet powder, beets, or meals coloring. Any of the above would most likely work, however I opted for beets and it turned out fantastically. Right here’s the way to make it:

1. Grate and “juice” the uncooked beet. I used a microplane to grate and only a paper towel to squeeze out the juice. a nut milk bag would work even higher.
2. Whisk collectively powder sugar, water, and cornstarch. The starch is there to assist the glaze set quicker and scale back dripping off the cookies, you possibly can skip it.
3. Add the beet juice (or your coloring of selection).
4. Dip your baked/cooled animal cookies.

You would additionally skip the pink fully and simply glaze in white with rainbow sprinkles. Nonetheless candy, nonetheless cute, nonetheless very sprinkle-able.

Ideas For Good Frosted Animal Crackers

1. Get the appropriate cookie cutters. It’s fairly tough to drag off this recipe with out the correct cookie cutters, however the set I used can be found on amazon for much less that $10. There are different fancier cookie press units, however you actually don’t want that since we’re going to glaze them in any case.
2. Use loads of flour while you roll out the dough. In any other case cookies will stick, cookies will break, lion legs can be misplaced, and we don’t need that.
3. Let the cookies cool utterly earlier than glazing. In any other case the glaze will warmth up/soften/run off an excessive amount of, chilling the cookies earlier than glazing is even higher. While you dip, be sure you shake off the additional and nonetheless place on a wire rack so any extra can drip off.

Extra Childhood Throwback Recipes You’ll Love

Print

Vegan Frosted Animal Crackers

• 
  Writer: Natalie
• 
  Prep Time: half-hour
• 
  Cook dinner Time: 8 minutes
• 
  Whole Time: 38 minutes
• 
  Yield: 60 cookies 1x
• 
  Class: cookies
• 
  Methodology: baking
• 
  Delicacies: american

---

Description

 

Frosted animal crackers with a more healthy vegan twist! Gluten-free shortbread cookies with a touch of cinnamon, naturally-dyed pink glaze, and plenty of rainbow sprinkles make these do-it-yourself circus animals enjoyable to make and so yummy to eat. Good to make with children, or as a candy childhood throwback recipe!

---

• 1 cup (125g) gluten-free all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup (125g) Natural SunButter
• 1/4 cup (50g) avocado oil*
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup (110g) cane sugar
• 3 tbsp (60g) agave or maple syrup

Glaze

• 1 1/2 cup (180g) powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp cornstarch**
• 2–3 tbsp water
• 1 tbsp beet juice (or just a few drops crimson meals coloring)

---

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a mixing bowl, beat collectively SunButter, avocado oil, vanilla, sugar, and agave with a hand mixer till properly mixed.
3. Add dry substances, and beat once more till it begins to ball collectively right into a barely sticky dough.
4. Roll out the dough on a floured floor to 1/4″ thickness. Minimize out cookies with mini animal cookies cutters, becoming in as many as attainable. Re-roll dough and minimize out extra cookies. I received about 60 complete.
5. Use a spatula to fastidiously switch cookies to the lined pans, leaving a little bit of house in between.
6. Bake 8-9 minutes at 350°F, till simply brown across the edges. Cool quarter-hour on the pan, then switch to a wire rack to chill utterly.

Glaze

1. Grate the uncooked beet with a microplane. Squeezing the grated beet in a towel to get out as a lot juice as attainable (you solely want one tablespoon).
2. Whisk collectively glaze substances till easy and drizzle-able.
3. Dip every (cooled) cookie in glaze, then place again on the wire rack to let the surplus drip off.
4. High with rainbow sprinkles.
5. Permit the glaze to dry for 30-60 minutes, or till dry and laborious to the contact.
6. Take pleasure in! Retailer in an hermetic container, ideally within the fridge.

---

Notes

*Or one other impartial flavored oil, not coconut. You would additionally use melted dairy-free butter.

**Non-obligatory, helps the glaze thicken/set quicker and never drip as a lot. You may sub tapioca or arrowroot

Key phrases: gluten free, do-it-yourself, diy, copycat, glaze, icing, pink, sprinkles, beet, shortbread, wholesome, dessert, children

CLICK BELOW TO PIN