Make some spooky fun Homemade Halloween sugar cookies using Christmas cookie cutters!
This post is all about making HOMEMADE Halloween sugar cookies using Christmas cookie cutter. We have the best tasting and texture cookie recipe for aspired cookie designers.
It's that time of the year when we start pulling our Halloween cookie cutters Christmas cookie cutters out and letting our creative minds go!
Wait. What?
yes, you read that right! we are using Christmas cookie cutters to make Homemade Halloween cookies! we are saving some money on this seasonal day and STILL have plenty of fun decorating cute and fun cookies!
Halloween is my favourite time of the year, and I am all about that spooky fun Halloween food and dessert! Making Homemade Halloween cookies is one of my favourite activities to do with my kids, and by myself too! It's a great time to be creative and have fun.
What's more amazing is that we can eat our creative work! it doesn't get better than this!
We got the perfect homemade sugar cookie recipe for you. I've been using this recipe for 10 years or maybe even more! I use it so much I have it memorized in my brain! This homemade sugar cookie recipe I've used it for: Halloween, Christmas, Easter, and birthday sugar cookies.
Why You Will Love This Recipe
- Saves Money - if you don't have any Halloween cookie cutters, don't buy them! We are saving you money and showing you how we can use Christmas cookies for Halloween!
- Tons of fun - because there are no blueprints on how you should decorate the cookies, this is where your creativity steps in!
- No one will know the difference - seriously, no one will know you've used Halloween cookie cutters unless you tell them. And even if they know, you'll just get compliments after compliments for being smart and creative.
- Be creative! - just because I show you some examples doesn't mean you got to follow my design! Be creative and show us what you can create!
Why Use Christmas Cookie Cutter For Homemade Halloween Cookies?
Because all the essential shapes for Halloween decorations are there. Just have to be creative and think about the shapes, and design of your work.
Plus, who has space to store more cookie cutters? They do take up a lot of space, and many of us don't have huge kitchen storage space.
Don't have professional-grade pipping bags?
Not everyone has professional cookie pipping bags hanging out in their house. Nor are we sometimes a fan of running out to get just ONE thing either!
I got the perfect pipping bag hack for you! If you don't have decorative piping bags in your house, you can replace it with freezer-grade ziplock bags. Yes, they work! Make sure it is freezer quality bags. The thin sandwich bags will not work because we will be putting pressure when we squeeze it, and sandwich bags will not hold up to that kind of pressure.
Just choose which corner of the ziplock bag you want to use, and open up that corner. I like to place it inside a tall glass, so it opens easily, and less of a mess filling the bags up. pour the coloured icing into the bag and secure it with an elastic band.
Ideas Converting Christmas Cookie Cutters To Halloween Cookies
We got some super cool ideas on how to convert your Christmas cookie cutters to Halloween cookies. We bought our Christmas cookie cutters from Aliexpress but the most similar I found on Amazon is the 12 piece Metal Christmas Cookie Cutter.
- Gingerbread man - zombie man, Dracula, skeleton, Frankenstein, mummy
- Candy cane - snake, purple and black candy cane.
- Snowman - (cut the body out of the snowman): pumpkin head with a hat, witch.
- Wreath - pumpkin, Halloween wreath,
- Mitton - ghost, 3-eye monster, gravestone (cut off the thumb part),
- Ornament - bare tree, skull face, fall leaf.
- Snowflake - spider web, spider
- Christmas tree - candy corn (take out the rigid edges)
- Reindeer - black cat, zombie reindeer
- Gift/present - spooky faces (monster, Dracula, cat, Frankenstein),
- Mistletoe - fall leaf, spider
- Circle - Halloween faces, words (ex: boo, happy Halloween, eek), witch's brewer/pot, pumpkins
- Angel - witch, bat (use only the head and arms),
Sugar Cookie Recipe
My favourite homemade sugar cookie recipe I've been using for over 10 years! I've used it countless times and it's for a good reason! The flavour is on point, and the texture is flaky good. It holds design very well, and stores really well too. Make the best Homemade Halloween Cookies with this recipe!
The colour I use for my icing is the AmeriColor Food Colouring Student Kit 12 set. The bottles are small but it is super concentrated and a little drop goes a long way!
Royal Icing and Flooding Icing: What's the difference?
If you're making very simple cookies with tiny toddlers, using only the royal icing is good enough. Especially with kids, flood icing isn't necessary for children 7 and under, unless there's an adult to guide them through it.
Royal icing is the outline for the cookies. It is thicker and more concentrated so where ever you pipe on the cookie, it will stay exactly there.
Flood icing (as you can tell from the name) is that it is more liquid form and it will spread around the cookie. When we use the flood icing, we need the outline of the cookie first to trap the flood icing. The benefit of flood icing is that it spreads an area more quickly and the texture is smoother looking (when it is spread on a large area).
Guidelines when to use Icing for Children
If your child just started to draw and you see the art is more scribbles, use only the royal icing.
If your child can draw animals with eyes and with a reasonable shape of animals and objects and can colour and fill in an object without crossing the line, then they are ready for royal and flood icing.
What are the essential colours for Homemade Halloween cookies?
If you have a deisgn in mind already and scouted the whole Pinterest for "Homemade Halloween Cookies" i'm sure you got the colours you needed.
However, if you're all about allowing yourself and others to be creative and create your own design, here are some colours I recommend to use for homemade halloween cookies.
- black
- purple
- orange
- white
- red
Fool-Proof Professional Tips
Pro Tip#1 - Cook the Homemade halloween cookies until slightly brown
Once the homemade cookies show a slight brown surface, it is done. Don't all the edges to go all brown becuase the cookies will be too hard. Since the sugar cookies are left out for a long time to decorate and to dry, we don't want to over-cook the cookies.
Pro Tip #2 - Flip the Homemade halloween cookies upside down once they are out of the oven
We flip the homemade cookies once they are out of the oven so it is still adjustable. we flip it upside down so it guarantees a flatter surface when we decorate the homemade cookies. A curved surface causes the icing to run down.
The cooling rack we use is Stainless Steel Cooling Rack for Baking with Lifting Handle.
Pro Tip #3 - let the cookie dough cool in the fridge
When the cookie dough is on the colder end, it helps us get sharper and define the edge around the cookies. a warmer dough will cause the end to round around, with no sharp edges.
Remember when you combine the ingredients together, round the dough up in a flat disk. Do not place your dough in a ball when you put it in the fridge. Disk shape helps you roll out the dough better with fewer chances of crack edges.
Pro Tip #4- cut the tip of the pipping plastic small
I like to start off thin and move myself up to something thicker. Thinner ends for icing gives you more control on the details of the design and decoration.
Pro Tip #5 - Mix and Colour Your Icing in a Bowl
Once you know the colours you need, separated them into a smaller bowl. Colour the icing in their own separate bowls. Mix with a spatula until the colour is consistent and smooth.
Remember, from these small bowls you're going to separate them further! For example, you made purple colour royal icing for the vampire cookie. You need purple royal icing and purple flood icing. Royal icing is setting the perimeter of the cookie so the flood icing doesn't run off from the cookie.
Pro Tip #6: Decorate The Homemade Halloween Cookies When It Is Completely Cooled!
I've made this mistake before and it's the most frustrating one! I know it's going to take patience, but only start decorating once the cookie is completely cool. When icing is applied to a semi-warm sugar cookie, the icing will melt all over the halloween cookie and becomes a hot mess!
Decorate Sugar Cookies
Equipment
- stand mixer
- large bowl
- spatula
- small spoons
- freezer quality ziplock bags
- elastic bands
Ingredients
Sugar Cookies
- 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks) cubed cold
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 cups all purpose flour you might need 4 cups
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp salt
Royal Icing
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 4 tbsp meringue powder
- 4 tbsp water warm
- 2 tsp vanilla extract clear colour extract
- 1 tsp almond extract cleared colour extract
Instructions
Sugar Cookies
- In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Flatten the dough into a 2 inch disk. Do not chill the dough in a ball. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).Â
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees°F (200 degrees C).
- Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.Â
- Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. or until the rims of the cookie give a slight brown colour. Cool completely.
Royal Icing
- In a large bowl, add the powdered sugar and meringue powder and mix together. Using an electric mixer on low speed, add in the extracts and water (1 tablespoon at a time) and mix until smooth.
- If you're planning to color the icing, this is the stage where you should mix that in. If making multiple colors, divide the icing into smaller bowls and place a damp paper towel over the bowls you don't plan to use first.
- The goal with the royal icing is that it's thick enough that it won't run off the side of the cookie, but thin enough that it will meld together. So how do you know when that is? Well, you use a method called "15 second icing". This means that when you run a knife through the icing, the icing should go back to how it was within 15 seconds.
- Keep any icing that isn’t being immediately used covered with plastic wrap as it dries out very quickly. Transfer to piping bags and decorate cookies.
Flood Icing
- Take the desire colour of the royal icing in a bowl. Add a few drops of water to the bowl. Mix vigorously until smooth and with the consistency you like. Transfer to a pipping bag and carefully flood the cookies along the perimeter of the cookie outlined with the royal icing.
Notes
- If your icing has started to harden, add a drop or two of water to bring it back to your desired consistency so it doesn’t clog your piping tips. However, avoid making the icing too thin as it’ll lead to air bubbles which is not good for cookie decorating.
- When using royal icing to decorate cookies, pipe the outline icing first, then flood it. Outlining means piping a thin outline of the cookie with thicker icing and flooding means filling the middle with thinner icing. Piping an outline first keeps the icing from sliding off the cookies.
- Add a few drops of water to the icing and stir with a spatula for a flooding consistency. Continue adding water until you achieve the desired icing consistency.
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