My Favorite Halloween Sugar Cookies

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I love Halloween parties, and I love making finger foods and desserts. These Halloween Sugar Cookies are the best!

Halloween Treats are so fun to make. I don’t make treats for the trick-or-treaters because wrapped candy works best for us. But we always have soup and sweets available for our neighborhood friends, and we love sharing these Halloween Sugar Cookies with them.

My Favorite Halloween Sugar Cookies Feature
What's Cooking?

The Best Halloween Sugar Cookies

My Favorite Halloween Sugar Cookies in a Jar

I make sugar cookies every season. This fall, I already made some Pretty Fall Cookies, which are sugar cookies with edible metallics.

I thought making some Halloween sugar cookies might be fun, too! So, I returned to my traditional way of decorating cookies with my decorating tips and royal icing!

I’m not sure what it is about sugar cookies—oh wait, it’s probably the sugar! But these are my favorite cookies of all time.

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Fun and Decorative Halloween Cookies

My Favorite Halloween Sugar Cookies

You might have noticed I had to highlight my pink and orange fall theme with my cookies, too. I know they are unexpected, but aren’t they fun?

My Favorite Halloween Sugar Cookies on a Plate

How to Make Halloween Sugar Cookies

Halloween Sugar Cookies Dough

Do you know what the trick is to bake cookies? It’s simple.

If you want them to cook evenly, you need to ensure that every cookie is the same thickness. How do you do that? With this rolling pin! Do you see the little ledge on the outside? That is what makes sure your dough is all the same width!

I have many pumpkin-shaped cookie cutters, so I picked three, made some dough, and cut out a lot of pumpkin cookies.

Here is a quick tip: I always bake my cookies less than the suggested time. I don’t like brown edges, so I watch them carefully! My recipe called for ten minutes, but I cooked mine for around 8 minutes.

Of course, every oven varies, so just be sure to watch the first batch closely. Your oven may get hotter as time goes on, so keep that in mind, too.

Halloween Sugar Cookies Baked

How to Decorate Halloween Sugar Cookies

Before I get into the details of cookie decorating, I do want to remind you that I am not a trained or professional cookie decorator. I have probably decorated sugar cookies less than ten times and I usually just wing it. Hehe.

Halloween Sugar Cookies Royal Icing

I like to decorate sugar cookies in two different ways: with buttercream frosting and royal icing. I wanted some detail in the decorating, so I used Royal Icing.

How to Mix the Icing for Royal Icing Cookies

Ideally, you want two types of icing consistency to decorate your cookies. The first is called Flood Icing. This is what I call the base coat. There is a trick you can use to get the right consistency to use the flood icing for the outline and to fill in the outline with icing. It’s called the 10-second rule.

Once your icing is mixed, take a sharp knife, cut about an inch down, and then count how many seconds it takes for the icing to come together and the “cut” to disappear. For the right “flood icing,” the “slice” in the icing should disappear in ten seconds. The consistency of the frosting is determined by the amount of water added to the Royal Icing mix.

My Favorite Halloween Sugar Cookies

The second consistency is what I call decorative icing. This is the icing you will pipe top to decorate the top of the Royal Icing cookies. I used the icing for the dots, the outline and curly accent, and the leaves in the photo above.

Just so you know, when I was mixing the icing, I used five tablespoons of water for the decorative icing and three more tablespoons for the flood icing. This is only a guideline for you to use. I mixed the decorative icing first and then removed it from the bowl. Next, I added more water to make the flood icing.

How to Use Flood Icing

It’s very easy to use flood icing because it only takes two steps. The first step is to pipe an outline around the outside edge of the cookie.

The second step is to apply more pressure to fill inside the outline.

Here are more photos of the flood icing. To make polka dots, add dots of flood icing of a different color immediately on top of the flood icing (before it dries).

Next, let the flood icing dry, then add the decorative icing.

How to Decorate Halloween Sugar Cookies

I had some fun decorating with both the pink and orange icing!

And obviously, these are not perfect, which is fine by me because they still taste good.

Yield: 16 cookies

The Best Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

Valentine's Day Sugar Cookies

These sugar cookies are light and flaky and have a slight taste of lemon. I love how they taste!

Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Additional Time 20 minutes
Total Time 1 hour

Ingredients

  • Sugar Cookies
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 large egg, lightly beaten
  • 1 tablespoons milk
  • 1 TBL lemon juice
  • 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • Royal Icing
  • 5 tbl warm water
  • 3 TBL Meringue Powder (with vanilla)
  • 4 cups Powdered sugar

Instructions

    Whisk together flour, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl.
    In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream
    butter, and sugar; add dry ingredients, and mix until incorporated. With the mixer running, add egg, milk, lemon, and vanilla; mix until incorporated.

    Transfer dough to a work surface. Shape into 2 discs, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate
    for at least 1 hour.

    Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with nonstick baking mats or
    parchment paper; set aside.

    On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut
    into desired shapes, and transfer to prepared baking sheets, leaving an inch in
    between. Leftover dough can be rolled and cut once more.

    Bake until lightly golden, about 10 minutes; do not allow to brown. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

    To make Royal Icing, beat all ingredients together until icing forms peaks (about 8 minutes with a heavy-duty mixer, 10 - 12 minutes with a hand mixer). Add additional water until the desired thickness.

    If you want the icing to outline and fill then use the 10-second rule. The test is done by dragging the tip of a knife across your frosting, about 1" deep. If the surface of the icing smooths over in roughly ten seconds, then it's ready for use.

    What's so great about this thicker icing is you can use the same icing for the outline and for the filling in.


Serving the Halloween Sugar Cookies

My Favorite Halloween Sugar Cookies

I love setting the cookies out on a table so my guests can grab one throughout the evening. They are so delicious but almost too cute to eat!

My Favorite Halloween Baking Must-Haves

A collage of Halloween-themed baking items, including molds, cutters, an apron, a mixer, utensils, and decorations for crafting perfect Halloween sugar cookies, all labeled as Amazon Home products.
CLICK HERE

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Decorated Pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies in a tall apothecary jar.
Homemade Halloween Treats

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19 Comments

  1. I could eat one of those pumpkin sugar cookies right now! I’ve never added an egg to my sugar cookie dough, wonder what it does?

  2. They turned out so cute. I was really curious about the decorating. I’ve always found it super challenging. When I am ready to try it “for real” I am coming back to this post to re-read your tips and follow them step by step. But I know it still takes practice. They turned out so pretty. I wish I could taste. That darn sweet tooth! 🙂

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