Halloween Cookies
Recipes and Decorating Tips

Halloween is that time of the year when the ghouls and witches come out to play.

All that "trick or treating" makes for very hungry little hobgoblins. What to feed them? Why not try our Halloween cookies?

No Halloween celebration would be complete without some seriously scary goodies.

Hosting a spooky Halloween party and need some inspiration?

With just a few basic Halloween cookie recipes you can create:

Witchy fingers

Ghastly ghosts

Beastly bats

Scary spider webs

Petrifying pumpkins

Sinister skeletons

Decorating Halloween Cookies

How to Make Creepy Chocolate Pumpkin Cookies

To make chocolate pumpkin cookies you will need a quantity of chocolate sugar cookie dough. For this recipe go to our best sugar cookie recipe. To make chocolate dough simply replace the 2 cups of all-purpose flour with 1 ¾ cups of flour and ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder.

Once your cookies have cooled you are ready to decorate. You will need a quantity of fondant icing. Ready-made fondant icing is available from all cake decorating shops and is very easy to use.

Knead the icing until it is soft and smooth. Add some orange food coloring and continue kneading until the color is well blended and there are no streaks.

Cut out shapes using a cookie cutter or fondant cutter. But remember if you use the same cookie cutter that you used for your cookies, your cookies will be slightly larger after baking.

You can make your own cardboard template. Simply place a cookie onto a piece of cardboard and cut around the edge.

Roll out your fondant. If you don't have a special fondant rolling pin, a small wooden one will do. To ensure an even thickness place a band at each end of your rolling pin.

Then place the template on the fondant and cut out pumpkin shapes. Using a small pointed knife cut out eyes, nose and mouth.

Brush each cookie with a little warmed honey or apricot jam and carefully position each fondant face over each cookie. Leave your Halloween cookies to dry.

How to Make Scary Spider Web Cookies

Make your cookies using our best sugar cookie recipe and cut out using a spider web cookie cutter.

You will need a quantity of royal icing. Other items you will need are 2 piping bags and 2 small plain tips and a pastry brush.

Divide your icing into two bowls and color one bowl black or whatever color you wish. Leave the remainder of the icing white. I recommend using gels or pastes with royal icing as they create a more intense color and don't water down the icing as much.

Using a piping bag fitted with a narrow tip, outline the edges of the cookie with the black icing. Then, using a small, damp pastry brush, gently spread an even solid layer of icing within the outline. You may need to thin the icing with a few drops of water to help it flow. Use a wooden toothpick to pop any bubbles on the icing’s surface.

While the icing layer is still wet, half fill the second piping bag with the white icing. Pipe a dot in the center of the cookie. Then continue piping concentric circles outwards. Starting in the center use a toothpick to draw straight lines to the edge of the cookie. Continue until you have your spider web pattern. Allow to set completely.

Other Halloween cookies such as ghost cookies and scary bat cookies can be made using the above cookie recipe. Once you have iced your cookies with the royal icing simply allow them to dry.

History of Halloween

Do you know how Halloween began? As we all know Halloween is celebrated on 31 October. But did you know that it actually has its origins in ancient Britain and Ireland? The pagan Celtic festival Samhain was celebrated at the end of summer.

Huge bonfires were lit on hilltops to frighten away evil spirits. Masks and costumes were worn in an effort to appease the spirits. The souls of the dead were supposed to revisit their homes on this day and so the association with ghosts, witches, hobgoblins, black cats, fairies and demons of all kinds.

All Hallows Eve (31 October) was originally a holy evening observed on the eve of All Saints Day. Gradually the pagan rituals influenced the Christian ceremony and Halloween became more of a festival. Many Halloween customs became games played by children.

Settlers who came to the US brought their customs with them and the practice of small children going from house to house in costumes to "trick or treat" was born. In the early years boys and young men played tricks, sometimes with damage to property. These days a treat (usually candy) is given with the trick rarely played.