Halloween Cookies

I always loved Halloween. But the past 10 years have confirmed my theory – I need to move to the USA to be able to fully embrace this.

In the meanwhile, though, I will have to make it work with what I have – no kids treat or tricking, no decorations, no scary masks.

Last year I had a post about Halloween Movies I love – find it here – which I am trying to go through again this year, and it includes one of my absolute favorite movies ever. While you try and figure out which one that is, I have baked Halloween cookies.

These Halloween cookies are not the easiest, to be fair, very time-consuming… but the end result is just too good not to try your hand at them at least once in your life. They are definitely not perfect, but I believe as a first attempt, they could have gone much worst.

Start by using this recipe for the sugar cookies, minus chocolate chips (or not!?). Cut with a pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter, then bake as per instructions.

For the royal icing

• 910g icing sugar
• 55g of meringue powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 170ml water

Prepare the royal icing: measure the water and add to this the vanilla essence and mix well. Then pour all the sugar in the bowl of your standing mixer and add the meringue powder and mix by hand with a spoon.

Stick to the flat beater and add the water gradually, then start stirring until it reaches the consistency of honey. You may need more or less water, so please do take the water content as an indication.

When the consistency is similar to the one of honey, we increase the speed and let it become more compact and smooth. At this point, we divide in as many bowls as the many colors you will need for your cookies with food coloring of your choice.

We had a lot of fun to color and fill each cookie, a bit less while waiting for it to dry out… Still, It is really worth it! Pumpkins were, alas, the most difficult and time-consuming ones, but also the most beautiful in my opinion: prepare the orange, green and black royal icing in three pastry bags with small nozzles and, using a food marker, draw the lines of a pumpkin on each one of the cookies.

Begin by filling out the segments, every other one to start with. Leave it to dry, then fill the other segments left and spread the royal icing with the help of a toothpick and leave to dry overnight. Add the eyes, mouth, and stem the next day, remembering to allow it to dry overnight again. A handful of these will take a couple of days, so make sure you have plenty of friends, kids, and family members around, the ones you will definitely have around when it’s time to eat.

I used piping bottles instead, from Amazon on here.