A lot of the foods available around this time of year often focus on lots of sugar, which isn’t ideal for young babies and children. I’ve written a blog on sugar for babies and children so do check that out if you’re wondering about the recommendations. I’ve also written about how I manage sweet foods for my children, specifically at Christmas time, but the principles apply to Halloween as well.
For this blog, I wanted to provide a lower-sugar alternative to much of what you can buy at this time of year. These cute little biscuits are perfect for trick or treating and contain only around 1g of sugar each*, which is much lower than most alternative options. They still taste sweet and are made with just three ingredients!
They’re a buttery shortbread and the icing sugar makes them melt in the mouth. Using icing sugar also stops them from spreading in the oven – don’t be tempted to try them with caster sugar or your BOO!! message will likely fade during baking.
You will need a set of cookie letter alphabet stamps which you click together to spell the message (easily available online). Or any Halloween stampers will do. We used a round 32mm-cutter for our Boo biscuits.
*The amount of sugar per biscuit will depend on the size of the cutter you use. If you use a larger cutter then they will have more sugar per biscuit than stated here, but the overall sugar content is still low comparative to what’s available!
Thanks again to Emily Kerrigan for this recipe. Check out her website or Instagram for more fun family food inspo.
Takes: 50 minutes
Makes: 42 mini biscuits
Ingredients
- 125g butter, softened
- 50g icing sugar
- 180g plain flour (can be made with gluten-free plain flour if needed)
Method
- Cream the butter and the icing sugar with electric beaters until light and fluffy.
- Add the flour and use the beaters to mix it in. Don’t worry that it looks crumbly initially. Once it starts to come together into a ball, put down the beaters and start bringing it together with floured hands.
- Roll out the shortbread ball on a lightly floured worktop or silicone mat to about 75mm thick. Cut out rounds of biscuits and use your stamp to spell out BOO!!. Remember you will need to insert the letters into your stamper backwards so that when you stamp the word it reads forwards. Reroll the dough until you have used it all.
- Transfer the biscuits to a baking tray (no need to grease or line it) and chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5. Bake the biscuits for 12-15 minutes until just turning golden and leave to harden on the tray before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.