I have two variations of this recipe. I'm sharing the egg-free version here at the blog and the version which contains one egg is featured today in a guest post at my friend Jessica's blog, Delicious Obsessions.

One of my favorite memories as a child was making cookie cutter cookies at Christmas. This was a tradition which I shared with my children as well. But since I'm doing GAPS, those old favorite recipes are not acceptable, and since my children are grown I hadn't thought too much about it. Around Thanksgiving I saw Jill from Real Food Forager's Grain Free Holiday Roll Out Cookies and I decided to give them a try. Jill asked for comments on decorating the cookies to make them SCD and GAPS legal, and that started me thinking.

Every year at my job I set up my collection of snow people and one of my coworkers asked if I would consider making some kind of Christmas cookies to share… it occurred to me that it would be really cool to make some snow people cookies. I decided I would make vegetable leather from beets and carrots to decorate! I wasn't sure if it would work out, but I figured it couldn't be much different than making fruit leather.

Although butter and ghee are legal on GAPS, I know there are a lot of people who don't tolerate even butter and ghee, so I thought I would try making these cookies with coconut oil [affiliate link]. The other adaptations from Real Food Forager's recipe is that I omitted the baking soda [affiliate link], exchanged orange zest for lemon, added cloves [affiliate link] and exchanged the egg for flax “egg” substitute.

Now without further ado, here is the recipe! You can find a printable version of the recipe below.

Grain-Free Cookie Cutter Cookies

• 1/2 cup coconut oil*
• 1/4 cup honey*
• 1 Tablespoon sprouted flax seeds (I used Go Raw's Organic Sprouted Flax Seeds found here)
• 3 Tablespoons water
• 2 teaspoons orange zest (from about 2 medium oranges)
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon vanilla [affiliate link]
• 1/2 cup coconut flour*
• Fruit or vegetable leather (for decorating, if desired)

Grind sprouted flax seeds until turned into flour. I used my Magic Bullet with the low blade. Place ground flax seeds in a small bowl. Add water one tablespoon at a time and mix thoroughly. Place in the refrigerator for 15 minutes to allow flax “egg” to set up.

Place 1/2 cup solid coconut oil in a bowl. Add 1/4 cup honey [affiliate link].

Beat with mixer until whipped.

Add orange zest, cloves and vanilla. Add the flax “egg” and mix together.

Measure 1/2 cup of coconut flour [affiliate link], firmly packed. I use Tropical Traditions and keep it in the freezer so it is still kind of moist and clumps together. Use the back of a knife to cut across the measuring cup to be sure you get an even measurement.

Reserve two tablespoons.

Sift the coconut flour to remove any small clumps. Mix the coconut flour into the bowl and mix thoroughly with a hand mixer. Allow to sit five minutes. If the dough is stiff but pliable and forms into a ball of dough, don't add any more coconut flour. Otherwise, add the rest of the coconut flour. Allow to sit for five minutes.

Form into a ball, the cookie dough's texture should be very much like regular cookie cutter cookie dough.

Divide ball in half. Place each piece between a piece of parchment paper and flatten into a circle. Refrigerate 15 minutes (not any longer because the dough will become too stiff – if it does become too stiff to easily use a cookie cutter allow to sit at room temperature for a few minutes).

Remove from refrigerator, roll the dough slightly thinner with parchment paper in place.

Apply “clothing” before baking if you are making snow people. 🙂 You can make your own, or use store bought fruit or vegetable leather. See below for more information on making the beet and carrot leather.

Bake at 350°F for 7 minutes.

Yields 10 snow people.

Beet and Carrot Leather Instructions

When I made the beet and carrot leather I totally winged it. A few days later my husband found my Mary Bell's Complete Dehydrator Cookbook and I was able to do some research. I will tell you what I did, and what I would change in making the beet and carrot leather again.

Steam two medium beets, chopped and 5 peeled carrots, until fork tender. It takes 25 minutes for the carrots, and an additional 15-25 minutes for the beets.

Add water by the tablespoon to the beets and puree them into an applesauce-like puree. Add 1-2 tablespoons of honey to the beets. Sweeten to taste, bear in mind as the leather dries it will taste sweeter.

Do the same with the carrots. After reading my dehydrator book I discovered that vegetables do not have much pectin – apples are high in pectin. According to Mary Bell, “A sufficient amount of pectin in applesauce is the reason the leather peels off the leather sheet in one piece.” With that bit of information, I would add one cooked apple to eat vegetable puree. (I would just steam two apples and add one apple to the beets and one apple to the carrots, you will probably be able to get by with adding less honey since the apple will add sweetness).

Spread your vegetable puree onto greased fruit leather sheets. I use this dehydrator Nesco American Harvest FD-61 Food Dehydrator with these Nesco LSS-2-6 Fruit Roll Sheets (Set of 2).

Mary Bell says “Drying time depends upon several factors: the make of dehydrator, the thickness of puree on the leather sheets, the sugar content of the puree, and so on.”

It is recommended to spread the puree 1/4″ thick but I spread mine thinner – about 1/8″ so that the resulting leather would be thinner for decorating the snow people cookies. It can take from 8-20 hours to dry the puree into leather.

I neglected to grease my fruit roll sheets and they stuck pretty bad, so ended up placing them into the freezer which allowed me to bend them and remove the leather. I placed the leather on parchment paper.

I used the snowman cookie cutter to press into the leather to indent a pattern for the hats, and then used scissors to cut them out. For the rest I just eyeballed the sizes, using scissors to cut the scarves, aprons, hat bands, flowers, etc.

It took me 5-6 minutes to decorate each snow person so this is definitely a labor of love. 🙂

I just laid the vegetable leather on the raw cookies, when placing the hat band on the hat I just placed my finger into a bowl of water and moistened the bottom of the hat band so it would stay in place.

Let me know if you try making these cookies, I would love to see pictures of your decorated cookies!

*If you order from Tropical Traditions by clicking on any of my Tropical Traditions links and are a brand new customer, you will receive this free book: Virgin Coconut Oil : How it Has Changed People’s Lives, and How it Can Change Yours, and I will receive a discount coupon for referring you. Thank you!

This post shared at Fat Tuesday's Christmas Edition.

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If you love recipes like this, I have two cookbooks you really need to check out ASAP! Naturally Sweetened Treats for gluten-free dessert needs and Mastering the Art of Baking With Coconut Flour.GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.