Halloween Cookies

Halloween Cookies

Happy Halloween! I baked all weekend and decorated a variety of Halloween cookies this year: grim reaper, jack o'lanterns, witch hats, cats, bats, skulls, tombstones, ghosts and candy corn. Though time consuming, I love to work with cookies.

Halloween Cookies

Close-up of Halloween Cookies

Chocolate Sugar Cookie
Ingredients
2 cups (4 sticks) Unsalted Butter, softened

2 cups Sugar

2 Extra Large Eggs

3 teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract

4 cups All-Purpose Flour

1 ½ cups Cocoa Powder

1 teaspoon Kosher Salt

Halloween Cookies

Directions
Sift flour, cocoa powder and salt in large bowl and combine with spatula; put aside.

Cut each stick of butter into 8 pieces.

Close up of Halloween Cookies

Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl of an electric mixer with paddle attachment on low to medium speed. Mix until incorporated, about 1 minute.

Scrape sides of bowl with spatula and mix again for 5-10 seconds more.

Reaper and Ghost

Add eggs one at a time. Scrape down bowl with spatula and mix again for another 10 seconds.

Add vanilla extract and mix for 1 minute.

Skulls

Slowly add flour mixture to bowl and mix on low speed for 1 minute. When dough clumps around paddle attachment, it is ready.

Use rolling pin and roll out dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper. Cover dough with plastic wrap and cool in fridge for 1-2 hours or overnight.

Tombstones

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Take one quarter of dough, and roll out to desired thickness and cut out desired shapes. Repeat rolling the dough and cutting shapes until you have used it all.

Place cookie shapes on parchment lined baking sheet and space apart 2 inches. Put cookies in the freezer for 5 minutes before baking. They hold their shape when you do this.

Jack O'Lanterns

Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes, or until center of cookie no longer looks wet. My cookies baked in 10 minutes.

Let cookies cool in baking sheet for 5 minutes and transfer to wire rack to cool completely, about 1 hour.

Let cookie sheets cool completely before you bake again. I put the cookie sheet in the freezer for 5 minutes. Repeat until you have baked all the cookies.

Crazy Bats

Royal Icing
Ingredients
4 Egg Whites

4 teaspoons Lemon Juice, freshly squeezed

6 cups Confectioners Sugar, sifted

Witch Hats

Directions
In a medium size bowl, whisk together the egg whites and lemon juice.

Transfer to stand or hand held mixer with paddle attachment.

Slowly add sifted sugar and beat on low until smooth.

Black Cats

If needed, you may add 1 teaspoon of water at a time until you reach the right consistency. Watch the Joy of Baking (link at the end) video for both Flooding Consistency and Piping Consistency Royal Icing. If you prefer a recipe using Meringue Powder, it is also available at this link.

I separated the icing in plastic containers with lids according to the different colors I needed for tinting.

Candy Corn

I used Americolor Soft Gel Paste Food Color in Grey, Super Red, Super Black, Orange, Yellow and Super White. I made Grey by adding just a few drops of the Super Black. I wanted a bright white so I added two drops of Super White.

Keep the containers covered until you are ready to color. Royal Icing hardens fast so keep it covered when not in use.

I transferred the icing immediately into Squeeze Bottles using a funnel to prevent it from spilling. Keep the squeeze bottle tips covered. If the Royal Icing hardens due to exposure to air, spray a little bit of water and shake bottle well holding the tip with your finger. Test the icing consistency on a paper towel before decorating the cookie.

Shapes cut out

I did the white borders around each cookie and waited 1/2 hour before flooding the cookie.

Use a paintbrush or cookie stick to reach edges and use tip of toothpick to pop any air bubbles.

Royal Icing Colors I used

I lined a cookie sheet with paper towels and placed the cookies on cooling tray over it.

I did the outlines first and waited about 15 minutes and then filled the cookies. I used some sprinkles, skulls and bones for decoration.

For further information:
For the Chocolate Sugar Cookie recipe, please visit Sweetopia: http://sweetopia.net/2013/12/chocolate-sugar-cookie-recipe-cut-out-cookies/

Please visit, Joy of Baking for the Royal Icing Recipe and Video Tutorial:
http://www.joyofbaking.com/RoyalIcing.html

Enjoy!

-Sophia/Two Frys