Gluten-free Halloween Chocolate Creams
Photography by Simeon Crofts
DIETARY – Gluten-free/Vegetarian/Nut-free
It’s spooky season and Halloween is right around the corner, so there’s no better time to get in the spirit and whip up a festive October bake! We’ve developed a gluten-free, kid-friendly recipe you can have lots of fun making and decorating with the little ones to enjoy together this Halloween, or why not hand them out as treats come 31st October?
The biscuits themselves couldn’t be easier to make. Simply throw the ingredients into a food processor, mixer or stir by hand to whip up the dough. I highly recommend refrigerating the dough as this helps form firm biscuits during baking and stops them from spreading all over the place and losing their shape. Then, sandwich with chocolate buttercream – you can even buy chocolate frosting from the supermarket if you really want to cheat it, and decorate as desired.
You can make any Halloween shape you like for this recipe – I picked up my cutters at the local supermarket, but dollar stores and many other retailers have lots of themed cutters available at this time of year. If you can’t find a specific shape, you can, alternatively, use a simple round cutter and ice your biscuits with fun spooky decorations like cobwebs, skeletons or pumpkins. You can even make spooky faces out of chocolate buttons or find jelly spiders and the like in your supermarket’s confectionary aisle.
When it comes to icing and decorating, it can be a little daunting, so let me share with you a simple method known as ‘flooding’ that can help achieve some really eye-catching effects. First, you’ll take an icing pen (readily available at most supermarkets) or make up icing according to my recipe for edging below, and pipe a thin line around the edge of your biscuit in your chosen colour. If making your own icing, the trick is to add a little bit of water at a time to avoid making it too runny. You’re looking for a really stiff consistency that holds its shape when drizzled. Transfer to a piping bag and snip a little off the end to give you a fine tip. Next, make up slightly thinner icing in the same colour to flood with, again adding a tiny amount of water at a time until your icing feels thick but not stiff. You should be able to drizzle a little off the spoon and it take a few seconds to disappear back into the icing. Transfer to a piping bag and snip off a little more from the end than before to allow a thicker stream of icing to flow. Then, gently squeeze inside your edging. I tend to pipe a thick blob of icing in the middle, then use a toothpick to carefully spread it to the edges. Allow the icing to set for around an hour before decorating on top.
I really wanted to use Smarties to decorate some of my biscuits, but you’ll find the ones at the supermarket are usually made with wheat and/or barley, so I found an alternative online called Clarana Chocolate Buttons, which are both gluten-free and vegan. If you’re in Australia, these are easy to find online – I got mine from the Gluten-free Pantry. But, of course, use whatever candy you desire to decorate yours.
There are no tricks in this recipe, so get baking and have some fun getting the kids involved. Happy Halloween!
Gluten-free Halloween Chocolate Creams
Ingredients
- 125g unsalted butter
- 100g brown sugar
- 2 tbsp golden syrup
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 210g gluten-free plain flour, plus extra for dusting
- 55g custard powder
- 50g cocoa powder
- ½ tsp xanthan gum
- 2 tbsp milk
- 150g unsalted butter
- 230g icing sugar, sifted
- 30g cocoa powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 50g icing sugar with approx. ½-1 tsp water for edging
- 145g icing sugar with approx. 2-3 tsp water for flooding
- Food colouring of your choice
- Gluten-free smarties, chocolate buttons or candy of your choice
Method
- First, beat together the butter, brown sugar, golden syrup and vanilla extract for a couple of minutes.
- Then, add the flour, custard powder, cocoa powder, xanthan gum and milk, and mix until a dough is formed.
- Lightly flour a surface with gluten-free plain flour and tip out the biscuit dough. Knead for up to a minute until the dough is soft and smooth. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
- When ready, pre-heat the oven to 180°C (160°C Fan)/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line three baking trays with parchment paper.
- Break the refrigerated dough in half and dust your surface with gluten-free plain flour. Roll out one half at a time to around 5mm thick. Cut your chosen spooky shapes out of the dough and carefully lift on to your prepared baking trays.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until firm to the touch and browning around the edges. They may still feel soft but will harden once on the cooling rack.
- Allow the biscuits to cool for a few minutes on the trays before transferring to a wire cooling rack to cool completely. The biscuits will take less than 30 minutes to cool.
- Next, make the buttercream filling. Using a hand or stand mixer, combine all the ingredients until a smooth buttercream is formed. Ensure you have sifted the icing sugar first to avoid creating lumps.
- Spread approx. 1½ tsp of the buttercream on one biscuit, then sandwich another matching biscuit on top. Ensure the biscuits are completely cool before carrying out this step.
- Now for the fun part – decorating! There are many different ways to ice biscuits, but I’ve chosen the simple icing sugar and water method for this recipe. For mine, I chose to pipe an outline, then ‘flood’ with a runnier icing and decorate with finer details on top (read more about this above). However, you can choose to just decorate with outlines to keep it simple or even just stick on your favourite sweets with a little blob of icing. The choice is yours! These biscuits will keep in an airtight container for up to 5 days.