Halloween Cookies take sweet and buttery flavored sugar cookies and covers them with a royal icing. I started making these cookies when my children were very young as they loved their flavor and I, in turn, loved watching them hum and haw over whether they wanted a ghost, a witch, a bat, or a black cat. The trick to making the perfect frosted cookie is to bake the sugar cookies until their edges are tinged with brown, as this makes them sturdy enough to hold up to being covered with the icing. Once the Royal Icing is spread on the cookies, it will take several hours, or even overnight, to dry completely and become wonderfully smooth and hard with a matte finish. Keep in mind that humidity affects the amount of time it will take for the icing to dry, so if possible, do not frost these cookies on a humid day.

Royal Icing can be made two ways; with powdered sugar, egg whites and lemon juice or with powdered sugar, meringue powder, and water. I have given a recipe for both. While I think the royal icing made with egg whites tastes better, those that are concerned about the risk of salmonella, will want to use the royal icing that is made with meringue powder. Meringue powder is a fine, white powder that contains dried egg whites, sugar, salt, vanillin and gum. It can be found at most cake decorating and party stores or else on-line.

Now, let’s talk about which type of food coloring to use. I like to use the concentrated gel paste dyes that are sold in small 1/2 or one ounce (14 – 28 grams) containers. Only a very small amount is needed to color the icing, and I measure it out using the end of a toothpick. Make sure to thoroughly mix the paste into the icing as you do not want streaks. You can buy gel pastes at cake decorating stores or stores like Michael’s.

Note: Candy eyes can be found at cake decorating stores or you can order them online at http://www.candylandcrafts.com/. The “eyes” can also be made by piping small black dots using a tube of black icing, or you can also use miniature chocolate chips.

This entry was posted on October 31, 2009 at 7:15 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Posted in Recent Posts by admin 2 Comments