Whole Food Halloween Cupcake and Cookie Ideas

Whole Food Halloween Cupcake Ideas and Baking Replacements

If you are trying to make Whole Food Halloween cupcakes, almond and coconut flours are your new best friend. Almond and coconut flours are gluten-free, low-carb, paleo and whole-food friendly, and can be substituted for all-purpose flour (white flour) on a 1 to 1 ratio.

While whole food devotees use healthy oils like coconut oil or extra-virgin olive oil, there are others who shun oil of any type. Today you will learn ways of creating both oil-friendly and oil-free Halloween treats.

Super Healthy Substitutes for Oils

Bananas and Pumpkins and Applesauce, Oh My!

When whipping up Halloween cupcakes and other pastries and baked goods, you can replace oil or butter with applesauce. Ideally you should use organic, unprocessed applesauce, or make your own.

Puréed pumpkins and mashed bananas can also be used as processed oil replacements. Below you will see exactly what ratios you need to follow to make your favorite Halloween cupcake recipes without traditional oils.

Applesauce – 1 for 1 ratio (for example, if your recipe requires 1/4 cup of oil, 1/4 cup of applesauce will do the job)

Puréed or canned pumpkin – 1 for 1

Bananas – 1 for 1

Replacing Oil with Oil

If you talk to 10 whole food devotees, you might get several differing opinions of what is “whole food.”

This is especially the case with oils. If you do not want to use any type of oil at all when you make Halloween cupcakes or other baked goods, simply experiment with the oil alternatives just mentioned.

Alternatively if you recognize healthy foods like raw unrefined organic coconut oil as acceptable, you can use it to replace other oils in a 1 for 1 ratio of measurement.

The same is true with raw organic extra-virgin olive oil. Consider coconut oil has the highest flashpoint of any cooking oil, so it holds its integrity and flavor, and delivers the most nutrients no matter what temperature you are cooking at.

Replacing Eggs and other Whole Food Halloween Baking Considerations

There are a few things you should remember in your making your Halloween whole food treats, especially when it comes to baking. There are several natural, healthy, whole food-approved foods that can replace unhealthy processed foods and other items which don’t qualify as paleo or whole food-acceptable.

For instance, 1/2 medium-sized mashed ripe banana can be substituted for every egg in any baking recipe. The riper the banana is, the more sweetness and flavor you get (and the easier it is to mash).

Some whole-foodies eat eggs, and some don’t, so this banana substitute may be of help to you making cupcakes and other baked goods this Halloween.

Also, 1/4 cup of natural, unprocessed applesauce makes an excellent replacement for one egg in baking recipes as well.

Make sure you don’t use more than 1 cup applesauce total in any recipe. If you add 3 tablespoons of water with 2 1/2 tablespoons of ground flax seeds, this is also an excellent replacement for an egg.

You may want to experiment with these three substitutions, as they ingredient adds its own unique flavor – not bad or overpowering, just different.

As with all oil, egg, sugar or flour replacements, experimentation is the key.

The Next Step – Making Your Cupcakes

With any of your favorite cupcake recipes, you can replace fruits and purées with pumpkin to make them Halloween-centric. You can alternately take any of your tried-and-true Halloween cupcake formulas and simply use the substitutions mentioned above to make them whole food-passable.

Whole Food Halloween Cookies

Decorative and creative cookies pop up every Halloween. Usually these goodies are filled with things like frosting, chocolate chips, candy corn and other food items that make Halloween-themed crunchy treats which taste great.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of cookies are made with white flour, white sugar, milk and other items which are definitely not whole food-compliant.

How do you balance the fun treats of Halloween and a whole food lover to do?

You just have to know how to make your own cookies that both celebrate Halloween and help you stick to your healthy whole food diet. The following cookie ideas and recipes will keep you on your whole food path, they taste great, and don’t take long to prepare.

Pumpkin Cookies with Almond Flour

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Ingredients

  

• 1 1/2 cups almond flour
• 1 cup pumpkin purée cooked pumpkin with a little water
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil
• 4 tablespoons date sugar or puréed dates
• A dash of sea salt

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 350°F, then mix the salt and almond flour in a medium sized bowl.
• Add eggs, pumpkin purée, date sugar or puréed dates while stirring, and mix well.
• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and on it place round, cookie sized portions of your batter.

Spiced Pumpkin-Raisin Cookies

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Ingredients

  

• 1 cup almond flour
• 2/3 cup old-fashioned oats
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 3/4 cup raw sugar plus additional for sprinkling
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin puree
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup raisins

Instructions

 

• Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees
• Line 2 heavy large baking sheets with parchment paper.
• In a medium bowl, combine the flour, oats, cinnamon, baking soda,
• salt and allspice. Stir to blend well. In a large bowl, combine the
• sugar, pumpkin puree, oil, syrup and vanilla; whisk to blend. Using a
• flexible rubber spatula, gradually stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin
• mixture. Stir in the raisins.
• For each cookie, drop 1 generous tablespoon of batter onto the prepared baking sheet, spacing the mounds
• about 1 inch apart (or use a mini ice cream scoop). Using moistened fingertips, flatten each to a 2-inchdiameter
• round. Sprinkle each cookie with a bit more raw sugar.
• Bake the cookies until brown and a bit firm to the touch, 17 to 20 minutes. Using a metal spatula, transfer
• the cookies to a rack and cool completely.

With the right ingredients, and a bit of imagination, you can make whole food cookies that taste great and show the spirit of Halloween.