Halloween Cookies 2020

Last year, I showed off some great Halloween sugar cookies. This year, I wanted to get a little fancy and use some of the letter cookie cutters I purchased over the summer. I had much loftier goals in mind, but I’m really happy with how these Halloween cookies came out this year.

The secret to a really good sugar cookie comes down two things. The first, the recipe. I’ve been using this amazing sugar cookie recipe for a few years now, and it is awesome. It delivers on cookie cutouts holding their shape, taste, and texture. The second being how long you’re willing to keep the cookies in the oven. Albeit, that has something to do with the recipe, however, a minute too late and it’s curtains. I tend to err on the side of a slightly underbaked cookie and take these out at six minutes.

When it comes to royal icing, I usually cave in and purchase the royal icing in a tub. It’s easy to make, usually available, and I find it easy to apply. However, I could not find a tub anywhere. Maybe everyone stopped baking banana bread and moved on to icing cookies? This year, I made royal icing from scratch.

Boo! Halloween cookies

That’s right. Not only did I make the cookies from scratch, but I also made the royal icing. So out of character for me to make more than one item from scratch! I used this highly recommended recipe. I had everything on hand, except for the meringue powder. That was in stock.

I was used to the royal icing in a tub, that it took me a few cookies to get the hang of this flow – note the watermarks on the ‘H’. With more than one color and only two flooding bottles, I needed to be efficient with my decorating. I mapped out which cookies needed what colors and whether they needed those colors in an outline and/or flooded. Then figured out the order of decorating to maximize the colors and drying time. For example, there were details like the ghosts’ and pumpkins’ eyes where I needed black outline icing. But in order to apply, I needed to outline and flood the white and orange cookies first. I love a good puzzle. This royal icing dries incredibly fast, which makes outlining and flooding that much easier.

I used frosting for the pumpkin stems and vines like always (same tubes as last year, people! Frosting doesn’t expire, does it? lmao). The bats and the letters are a new addition this year. I did not use the bat cookie cutter last year because I only wanted to work with two colors, haha. But they look so good, very Batman-esq.

I had fun with these. I think they took me two hours to decorate. I am so in awe at some of the more advanced cookie decorating because if two hours gave me these, I cannot imagine how long some of these other cookies take to decorate. Add this to your Halloween bucket list!

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• Halloween cookie cutters
• Letter cookie cutters
• Sugar cookie recipe
• Royal icing recipe
• Flooding bottles
• Outline bottles
• Meringue powder
• Wilton icing dye