Kid Friendly

With halloween just around the corner, what better excuse than to involve the kids in making some fun halloween cookies using this great recipe. The cookie base recipe is not too sweet, but quite shortbread-y, making it a perfect match for the icing.

Get pumpkin, witch and ghost cookie cutters from your local craft shop or home wares store, and away you go! You will only ever be limited by your imagination (and the kids will have fun too).

Spooky Halloween Cookies (Biscuits) Ingredients

• 240g plain flour
• Pinch salt
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 180g butter, grated or cut into small cubes
• 3 tbsp water
• 2 cups icing sugar
• Lemon juice
• 1 tspn butter
• Food colouring
• Hundreds and thousands/sprinkles or cachous for decoration

Spooky Halloween Cookies (Biscuits) Method

To make the cookies, sift the flour, sugar and salt together onto a clean bench. Add the grated butter and lightly rub the flour and butter together between your finger tips and thumb tips (you don’t want it to be completely combined at this stage, it should be quite messy).

Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and add the water. Using a butter knife ‘cut’ the water into the flour so that it is partially combined. If it looks too crumbly, add another tablespoon of water and cut the water into the mixture again.
Quickly knead the mixture a couple of times to bring all ingredients together (just a few times – don’t over work the pastry). Wrap pastry in cling wrap and then refrigerate for 30 mins to an hour. You could also put the pastry in the freezer if you want to make it in advance; it will last a couple of weeks (just make sure it is well wrapped in cling wrap).

Roll the pastry out onto a well floured board to 1/2cm thick, then cut out spooky halloween shapes (you can buy Halloween shape cutters from any good home wares or cooking supply shop, sometimes even supermarkets stock them).

Place the shapes on a greased baking tray lined with baking paper and bake in a preheated oven at 220° for approximately 10-15 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool slightly on the tray, then transfer to a wire tray to cool completely before icing.

To Decorate Spooky Pumpkin Halloween Cookies

Halve the plain icing and tint one bowl with orange (a few drops of red, and a few drops of yellow) food colouring and the other with green (a few drops of blue, and a few drops of yellow) food colouring. If you want to be really fancy, purchase flat strips of black licorice and cut into shapes to make spooky eyes and a mouth.

Spread the orange food colouring over the surface of the biscuit with a little green for the stalk of the pumpkin. Cut out a spooky looking mouth and diamond eyes and place on top of the icing. Allow icing to set.

To Decorate Spooky Witch Halloween Cookies

Halve the icing and tint one bowl with purple (a few drops of red, and a few drops of blue) food colouring and the other with green (a few drops of blue, and a few drops of yellow) food colouring.

Spread the purple icing over the witches dress and hat, and the green icing over the witches face. Cut out strips of licorice for eyes, mouth and hair and place on the cookie. Allow icing to set.

To Decorate Ghost Halloween Cookies

Reserve a very small amount of icing and tint with blue food colouring. Spread the cookies with white icing and allow to set. Place the blue tinted icing in a small sandwich/plastic bag and snip off one corner of the bag to form a very small nozzle. Pipe blue eyes on the ghosts (over the white icing) and allow to set.

{ 0 comments }