Keto Frosted Animal Cookies

Sugar Free Frosted Animal Cookies Recipe

These cookies will stir up fun childhood memories. This frosted animal cookies recipe tastes just like the kind your mom used to pack in your lunchbox. The bright, colorful circus cookie made such an impression on me growing up that I had to recreate a sugar free version of this favorite cookie. These sugar-free frosted animal cookies have a delicate crunch and are coated with a white chocolate frosting and dipped in sprinkles. The flavor is unreal! This is one treat my kids can get on board with because the animal shapes are so fun. Plus they love cookies that are colored and have sprinkles on them! I love that I can pack a few in their lunchbox when they go to school and not worry about a sugar high later on.

The Sugar Free Frosting on Circus Animal Cookies

The sugar-free frosting used in this recipe is actually melted white chocolate. When you dip the animal cracker in white chocolate, it tastes just like frosted animal cookies! The sugar free white chocolate I like to use is by ChocZero. They have a line of low carb baking chips that don’t contain any sugar alcohols – great option if you are trying to avoid those. The other benefit to using melted white chocolate is you can easily add a few drops of food coloring to dye the frosting. The melted chocolate coats nicely around the animal shape and dries as a hard shell.

Sugar Free Sprinkles

Sprinkles are a must have when making these frosted animal cookies! You have a couple of options when selecting sprinkles. Unfortunately, the traditional rainbow, multicolored nonpareils sprinkles you see on store bought circus cookies are not available as a sugar-free option. If you are going for an authentic looking animal cookie, then just use these multicolored nonpareil sprinkles. Sure these sprinkles do contain sugar but you are only sprinkling a tiny amount that it won’t make a huge difference in carb count. If you want to stay completely sugar-free, then use these sugar-free sprinkles. They aren’t the traditional round sprinkles you see on these cookies but they will still work!

Is Food Coloring Keto?

Most food coloring is fine for a keto diet. Make sure your food dye doesn’t have any sugars in it. Some of the cake and cookie decorating dyes can have additional sugars. Check the label.

Animal Cookie Cutters

To make these animal crackers, you need small animal shaped cookie cutters with a variety of animals. These are the closest animal cutouts I found. They have the giraffe, cat, horse and fish in this set.

Importance of Sifting the Flours

Frosted animal crackers have a delicate crumb since they don’t contain egg to help bind the cookie together. To get a texture similar to store bought animal cookies, I highly recommend sifting the almond and coconut flours together. Do not skip this step if possible. Sifting the flours and dry ingredients will give the perfect texture inside the cookie.

Why Do You Refrigerate Cookie Dough

Another important step when making these frosted animal cookies is to refrigerate the dough before rolling out, cutting, and baking the punched out cookie shapes. Refrigerating helps harden the dough so it’s easier to roll out and cut shapes from. It also keeps your cookies from spreading when baking. If the butter gets too warm before baking, your cookies will spread too much on the tray. Refrigerating cookie dough also helps meld the flavors together so you get a buttery, vanilla cookie.

Troubleshooting When Cookie Looses it’s Shape

Sometimes your cookies will still spread when baking even if you refrigerate the dough. I have an easy fix for you, but you have to act fast before your animal cookies cool. Using a knife, push the edges of the cookie in and mold it back to the desired shape. Do this immediately when they come out of the oven since the dough will still be pliable. Let the cookies cool completely on the baking tray before transferring them to a wire rack. The cookies are very soft and delicate when they first come out of the oven so don’t try to pick them up! Once the cookies have completely cooled, they will be hardened and easy to pick up.

Freezing the Cookie Dough & Storage

Since this recipe does require time, I like to break up the steps and make the cookie dough one day and bake them another. You can store the dough in the refrigerator or freezer until you’re ready to roll them out and bake. Not only does this help the flavors come together, it’s a great way to meal prep so you always have low carb cookies on hand for when cravings hit or when you want to bake with your kids. Store the cookie dough wrapped in plastic wrap and then place in a freezer safe bag. Keep in the refrigerator or the freezer. To bake from frozen, let the dough sit at room temperature for 5 minutes before rolling out and cutting shapes. Proceed with the remaining steps of the recipe. Once baked, store your sugar free cookies in an air tight container.

Eggless Cookies

If you or your kids have an egg allergy, this will be your go-to cookie recipe! These frosted animal cookies are not made with eggs!