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Healthy “Shaun The Sheep” Christmas Cookie // No Maida, No Sugar, Eggless Butter Cookies

Healthy “Shaun The Sheep” Christmas Cookie // No Maida, No Sugar, Eggless Butter Cookies

Christmas is around the corner and all I am thinking about is cookies and cakes and alcohol-free gluhwein (Oh yeah! That’s a thing too). The aroma of baked cookies and cakes at home makes you feel festive. This time we decided to make something for kids who do not eat sugar or refined flour at all. Presenting healthy and eggless “Shaun The Sheep” Christmas Cookie for your little munchkins. The chocolate filling for this cookie is also made of healthy ingredients instead of butter and sugar.

Your kids are going to dance when you make these cookies for them. Seeing their favorite cartoon character will blow their mind and make them extremely happy. As parents, you will be relaxed that your kids are having healthy biscuits or cookies instead of store-bought ones that are loaded with chemicals and antioxidants.

Story Time

When we bake cookies, we always try and share them with our neighbors’ and friends’ kids. Last year we made these flower-shaped, chocolate-filled cookies and shared them with our friends’ kids. My friend’s 6-year-old son saw the cookies and his mouth opened wide and his eyes widened too. That was the reaction I was hoping to get and when I got that, I can’t express how happy I was. This year when we baked these “Shaun The Sheep” cookies, we were a little skeptical especially because of the chocolate filling. Instead of using chocolate buttercream frosting, we created almond butter chocolate spread, without using any sugar. Instead of using chocolate in the cookie, we used natural cacao powder. We did not know if the kids would like it or not.

We shared these cookies with our friends and their kids’ reaction made us believe that our little kitchen experiment was a hit. They were dancing to the tunes of the “Shaun the Sheep” theme song. They did not want to eat the cookies, instead, they wanted to play with them. Oh boy! That made us extremely happy. These cookies are fun, healthy, tasty, and a sustainable toy too. 😀

What is Shaun The Sheep?

Shaun The Sheep is a popular cartoon character. He has become a global superstar, enjoyed by fans in 170 countries across the world! There are TV series and movies based on the character that is loved by the kids and has won many awards.

Tips to bake them perfectly

  1. Sifting: Sifting the dry ingredients is very important. Sometimes your sugar or flour contains some tiny lumps that are unnoticeable. And it gets difficult to form a smooth dough if they have any lumps.
  2. Room temperature ingredients: Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature. We do not want extra soft or hard butter for the recipe. Take the butter out of the fridge 30 minutes before baking.
  3. Refrigerating the dough: Butter melts while you mix the dough and roll. That makes the dough extra soft to handle. Refrigerate the rolled dough and then cut out the pieces.
  4. Overmixing: Overmixing the dough is another problem that results in hard and unpleasant cookies. It even develops gluten that results in flaky cookies. To prevent that, mix only until you do not see any dry flour in the bowl.

What is the texture of these chocolate butter cookies?

These chocolate butter cookies are firm but softer to bite. They have a sturdier shape and are very similar to shortbread cookies. These cookies do not rise because they do not have any baking powder or baking soda. But they got their flakiness because of the butter and liquid added to it.

How to store butter cookies?

You can put these cookies in an air-tight container and leave them on the counter for around 10 days. To make them last longer, you can even put them in the freezer.

Can we freeze the cookie dough?

You can refrigerate the cookie dough for 4 to 5 days.

You can even put it in a zip-lock back and freeze it for up to a month (or more). When you want to bake cookies, put the dough in the refrigerator for a couple of hours to soften, and then roll and bake them.

Is this recipe vegan-friendly?

Yes. All the ingredients used in this recipe are plant-based and vegan. You can either use dairy or vegan milk. Also, use either dairy or plant-based butter. It is your choice.

Ingredients List

Ingredients of Chocolate Butter Cookies

Cooking Method

Chocolate Butter Cookie

Chocolate Butter Cookie

Chocolate Butter Cookie

More cookies – just as good

  1. 3-Ingredients Cinnamon Puffs (Vegan Palmier)
  2. 100% Whole Wheat Gingerbread Cookies
  3. 1 Dough, Many Cookies – Butter Almond Cookies
  4. Eggless Christmas Cookies with vegan royal icing decoration
  5. Eggless Peppernut Cookies

Now grab all the ingredients because you are ready to make these cute little Christmas cookies at home. It is perfect to make in this festive season and grab all the attention, appreciation, and love from your kids.

If you try this recipe and like it too, please share the photo of your creation on Instagram and tag us @thefearlesscooking. We just love to see your recreation of our recipes.

Happy Cooking 🙂

Love from us

Richa

Healthy “Shaun The Sheep” Christmas Cookie // No Maida, No Sugar, Eggless Butter Cookies

Eggless. No Sugar. No Refined Flour.

Tell us what you think

Make holidays exciting and fun for your kids with their favorite cartoon character - Shaun The Sheep. May I say this sheep flock is healthy and vegetarian so that you can rest assured that your munchkins are binging on something healthy? 

15

Servings

15 min

Prep Time

15 min

Cook Time

30 min

Total Time

Courses


Ingredients

Cookie Ingredients

Filling

Optional Decoration

Steps

Prep Ahead
  1. Take out butter and milk from the refrigerator at least 30 minutes before you start baking. Every ingredient should be at room temperature. 
Dough
  1. In a large bowl, sift jaggery powder. Add butter to it and whisk them together until light and creamy, about 5 to 7 minutes. 
  2. Sift in the rest of the dry ingredients and mix until well combined. 
  3. Add milk to make a dough. Add milk only if it is needed to form a firm dough.
  4. Roll the dough in between the parchment papers, about 1/2 cm thick. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the filling.
Filling
  1. Whisk together almond butter, jaggery powder, and cacao powder until well combined. (Using a food processor would be better to make a smooth filling)
  2. Add oil if needed.
Baking
  1. Preheat oven to 170°C, top/bottom setting.
  2. Using a flower-shaped cookie cutter, cut out the dough. Make circular holes in half of the cutouts using a piping nozzle. Place the cookies on a lined baking tray leaving some space in between. Roll out the leftover dough and cut it too. 
  3. Bake them for around 15 minutes, or until just baked.
  4. Once done, take them out of the oven and let them rest for a couple of minutes. After that, transfer them to the cooling rack to cool completely. 
Decoration
  1. Take one piece of the flower shaped cookie (without the hole) and fill it with a generous amount of the filling. Place the other cookie (with the hole) on top. Your cookie sandwich is ready. Repeat the same with the rest of the cookies.
  2. You can make hair using royal icing. Also put some desiccated coconut on top to give it a more natural look.
  3. Use a paint brush if needed to clean out the surface.
  4. Make eyes using royal icing and melted chocolate. And nose using melted chocolate only.
  5. For the ears, make the shape using melted chocolate. 
  6. And your "Shaun the Sheep" cookies are ready to be served.

FAQs

What makes cookies tough and hard?
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The most common reason for hard and tough cookies is over mixing the dough. Mix the cookie dough only till you don’t see any dry flour left in the bowl. Also, using a spatula to mix prevents gluten formation. Mixing the dough with hands may result in kneading the dough. If this forms too much gluten, you will get a tough cookie.


Why my cookies are dry?
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If there is too much flour in the dough, the cookies become dry and they don’t taste good. To prevent that, measure all the dry and wet ingredients carefully. If after measuring everything accurately the dough still feels dry, add a little bit of extra liquid – 1 Tbsp at a time.


How to bake cookies without oven/microwave?
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This is one question we get asked a lot. There are a lot of things that you can try.

  1. Pressure Cooker Oven – Heat salt or sand in your pressure cooker. Then place a ring and on top of that comes a plate/tray for baking cookies. Leave some space in between the cookies as they spread. Cover the pressure cooker without the rubber and whistle. Cook for a few minutes. Check and remove once they are perfectly cooked.
  2. Cast Iron Kadhai – It works the same as the pressure cooker. Just cover it up with a lid. Seal it well. It will work like an oven.
  3. Idli Stand – This is the easiest of all the methods. Put the cookies on each mould of the idli stand and cook them without any water or steam. It turns out absolutely good.

Hope that these methods will work for you. Happy baking.


What happens if I over-mix the butter cookie dough?
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This is a big problem in making cookie dough. Often, we overmix the dough that results in hard cookies. When you overmix the dough, it forms gluten. And on baking, you won’t get that crumbly texture. It will be a little hard and snap on breaking. Also, use a light hand while mixing the dough. Too much pressure often results in overmixing and gluten formation. I would suggest using a spatula for mixing because that helps a lot. And mix using the cut and fold method. In this method, you cut the dough using the spatula and then fold everything in. Then repeat the same until you don’t see any dry flour left in the bowl.

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