Spider Web Cookies

To continue with the theme of Halloween, make these. But hurry, time's a ticking! (or time's a witching, whatever you will.) I used a simple sugar cookie for the base. This particular sugar cookie has a cake-like texture. You could use whatever sugar cookie recipe you fancy or even pre-made ones (do it, you know you want to).

Sugar Cookies

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 cup butter, softened

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. almond flavoring

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. soda

1 tsp. cream of tartar

Blend sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add eggs, vanilla and almond flavoring. Mix thoroughly. Slowly add dry ingredients until mixed thoroughly. Chill dough until easy to work with, about 30 minutes to 1 hour. Roll cookies out on floured surface. Cut using round cookie cutter of whatever size you would like. Bake at 350 degrees for 7-8 minutes. Chill on wire rack.

Spider Web Decoration

Vanilla frosting, room temperature

Black frosting gel

Frost cookies with vanilla frosting. Using black frosting gel, draw circles on cookie in increasing sizes, shown above. Using toothpick or knife, start in center circle and pull frosting out in a straight line. Do as many lines as you like to create your own web!

Happy Halloween! Next week...Thanksgiving!!

Pumpkin Bars with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

This Friday night:

1. Make Pumpkin bars.

2. Pour yourself some apple cider.

3. Snuggle up.

4. Watch a Halloween movie.

You're welcome.

Pumpkin Bars

1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin puree

2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

Creme Pumpkins

In a mixing bowl, beat pumpkin, sugar and oil. Add eggs and mix well. Combine dry ingredients and add to pumpkin mixture. Beat until blended. Pour batter into a greased 12 x 17 cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting. Top with creme pumpkins.

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup salted butter, softened

3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla

2 tsp. cinnamon

2-4 TBL water

Beat together the cream cheese and butter. Add half of the powdered sugar, salt, cinnamon and vanilla. Beat until fully incorporated. Add the remaining powdered sugar and water until desired consistency is reached. Beat on medium high until light and fluffy. Spread onto cooled pumpkin bars.

Frosting recipe from: thesisterscafe.com

Monster Cookies

My son is going to be a monster for Halloween this year - probably the cutest monster Halloween Town has ever seen, but I'm biased. These monster cookies are almost as cute as him! And you can make them with your kids/monsters, which is a great perk. I confess, I did not make them with my kid. He was asleep. But he's six months, so we'll cut him some slack (this time).

I got all of my decoration supplies at Walmart, so if you live in an even remotely populated town in America than you should have no problem finding the following:

Candy Eyeballs - a must!

Fruit snacks - for embellishing and snacking

Gel pen - makes "gluing" on and drawing quite easy

Monster Cookies

1 cup butter, room temperature                                   

1 cup powdered Sugar

1 tsp. vanilla Extract

2 1/4 cups all-purpose Flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1-2 Tbsp. lemon rind

Food coloring

Colored sugar or sprinkles

Decorations: candy eye, gel frosting, fruit snacks

1. Using mixing, blend butter, sugar and vanilla thoroughly.

2. Mix in flour, salt and lemon rind.

3. Divide dough into two parts.

4. Add a couple drops of food coloring to each half of dough according to desired color. Mix thoroughly. I found that mixing it in with my hands worked best to make the color even.

5. Work separate halves of dough into a ball and then mold into rolls, about 2-3" across.

6. Roll the roll (sounds like a dance move) into colored sprinkles or sugar. It should look like this:

 7. Cover with saran wrap and chill in the fridge for several hours or overnight.

8. Take dough out of fridge. Allow to soften a bit until easy to slice.

9. Slice in approx. 1/4" slices. 

10. Bake on un-greased baking sheet @ 375 degrees for 7-9 minutes. Do not brown.

11. Let cool on baking rack.

I made purple with colored sprinkles and green with orange sugar, however, there are lots of other monstrous combinations to be found. Use whatever colors you like! 

13. Decorate! 

14. Yum, yum. 

Black Velvet Cookies

'Tis the season! I'm so excited. I don't like gore but I do like a good theme, and Halloween will serve me perfectly the entire month of October. Ghouls and ghosts and spiders, oh my! 

The original recipe was entitled 'Red Velvet Cookies.' Now they are 'Black Velvet Cookies.' You see what I did there. No further explanation required.

They are delicious and chewy and kick off the festivities in a dark way. Boo!(yah).

Black Velvet Cookies

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped                                           

1/2 tsp. baking soda                                                     

1/2 cup butter, softened                                               

2/3 cup packed brown sugar                                        

1/3 cup sugar                                                               

1 egg                                                                           

1 Tbsp. black food coloring *

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup sour cream

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 can (16 oz) cream cheese frosting

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. In a microwave, melt unsweetened chocolate at 20 second intervals. Stir until smooth and set aside to cool.
3. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars until fluffy. Beat in egg, food coloring and vanilla. Add cooled chocolate; beat until blended.
4. Add dry ingredients alternately with sour cream, beating after each addition.
5. Fold in chocolate chips.
6. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto baking sheet. Bake 8-9 minutes or until completely set. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.
7. Spread with frosting.

*A word about black food coloring - it's hard to find. The first time I made these I tried to mix red, yellow and blue per the genius of a google search but it turned out gray and rather gross looking. The second time I used frosting dye which I found at Walmart in a cute tiny jar. It worked much better AND I have a cute tiny jar of frosting dye for future use. Win win. Win.

-Recipe adapted from Christina Petri via Taste of Home