Halloween Cookies

These Halloween Cookies are great fun to make and the only limit is your imagination! Even if you don’t have all the different Halloween themed cookie cutters, you can easily create a template from thick paper and cut out simple shapes by hand.

There are couple of tricks I use for with this recipe. First one is to use greaseproof paper to roll out my dough. You can try to roll the dough out without the greaseproof papers, but I found that this is much easier (the dough can be quite sticky) and I always use the papers to line the baking trays, so that there is no waste. It will also prevent you from adding extra flour for dusting (which can make the biscuits quite dry).

If you have the time, you can put the rolled out dough back to fridge before you cut out your biscuit shapes. This makes the dough much easier to handle and your biscuits are not going to expand too much when you get to bake them.

To bake your cookies, turn your oven to about 180C and bake for about 7 minutes.The timing depends on the size and thickness of your biscuits, but the final colour should be golden brown.

To decorate my Halloween Biscuits, I used several decorating techniques. The simplest way to decorate the biscuit is to roll out an icing fondant to a thin layer and cut out the same shape as your biscuits. Then use apricot or other lightly coloured jam to brush the cookie and stick the fondant on the top. The next step is to mix some icing and then pipe, in my case, a simple spider or a spiders net on to the top of the fondant.

To mix the icing, use either water (or lemon juice) and icing sugar mixed to a thinner paste. If you are using ‘flood’ icing technique (some of the Halloween Cookies were done in this way) you need to make a thin – runny icing.

To make your icing, mix a smaller amount of water (or egg white) in a bowl with icing sugar and continue to add more icing sugar as you stir to create a thick paste.

Once you’ve mixed your icing, colour them to your desired shade. To get vibrant colours, you need to use gel food colouring (thick food colouring gel, not liquid food colours).

Use a piping bag with a number 1.5 or 2 nozzles. If you don’t have a piping nozzle, just cut your piping bag with a very small hole.

I first pipe all my outlines, and when dry, I fill them with the flood icing (thin icing). Once the flood icing is dry, I paint all the other details on. The Halloween Cookies will need to have plenty of time to dry; I would recommend at least 24 hrs (they look dry after 2 hours, but that’s just the top crust forming, and the layer underneath is still soft).
After that, the biscuits are ready to be packed, eaten or given away like little treats and presents and to decorate your home ready for the Halloween!

I hope you’ve enjoyed making my Halloween Biscuits Recipe and if you try them, please let me know how you get on in the comments below – I’d love to know!

Until the next time – Happy Baking!
Magdalena

Print Recipe

Halloween Cookies Recipe

This makes about 15 medium biscuits or 20-25 smaller ones.

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time15 minutes mins

Chilling time30 minutes mins

Course: Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: American

Ingredients

125 g unsalted butter

125g caster sugar

1 medium egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

250g plain flour

Instructions

Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy and fluffy.

Add the eggs and vanilla extract and mix until they are well combined.

Add flour to the bowl and mix until all the ingredients just come together.

The dough needs to rest before you roll it out and bake it. Wrap in a cling film and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Then roll out the dough into about 5-8 mm thickness. Take two large greaseproof papers and roll out half of the dough between them.

Use biscuits cutters to cut out your Halloween shapes and place (with plenty of space betweeon a baking tray.

Bake the biscuits in a preheated oven at 180C (gas mark 4) for about 7 minutes. Leave to cool on a cooling rack.