What’s the next best thing to Halloween Cupcakes? Halloween Cookies…of course!

My friends, I’ll have to admit…I can bake a pretty mean cupcake. Cut out decorated sugar cookies…umm that’s a different story! I honestly think I’m out of practice. You know how you always tell your kiddos, practice makes perfect, well…I think I need to practice what I preach.

I was super excited to receive a box of Wilton goodies as part of the Walmart Moms program, and took on the challenge of cookies and cupcakes! {watch for those on Cupcake Tuesday} Some of the supplies they sent were some I am familiar with and use all the time but some were new to me. I have been wanting to use the Candy Eyeballs forever, {super excited to see those} and love the Cookie Cutters too. A girl can never have enough cookie cutters…right?

First thing to do was to bake the cookies, I have made and shared several recipes for cut out cookies with you, like the Candy Corn Cookie Sandwiches, Almond Cookies and even this really old post, Sugar Cookies made with sour cream and cinnamon in them {our favorite}. But I have never tried the Wilton recipe for Roll Out Cookies, so I wanted to give it a try.

Then it was time to decorate the cookies. Cut out sugar cookies are typically decorated with Royal Icing, I decided to use the Buttercream Icing instead. I have a few opinions on Royal Icing…(1) Although it looks beautiful, if you are in a hurry it isn’t the best option because it has to typically set for 24 hours. (2) If you are not familiar using Royal Icing, {like me} it can be difficult to use, and (3) I like the taste of Buttercream instead of Royal Icing.

Here are the cookie supplies I received plus a few other Wilton products. The Treat Box in the photo above is also from Wilton, wouldn’t your neighbor or friend be surprised with some cookies in this Treat Box?

How to Decorate Halloween Sugar Cookies

HoosierHomemade.com shares how to decorate Halloween Sugar Cookies.

Ingredients

Buttercream Icing
Decorator Bags, Couplers and Tips
Cookie Cutters
Orange, Black, Red Coloring
Orange, Black Red Sparkle Gel
Eyes
Sprinkles and Sugar

Instructions

Pumpkin

Frost with orange icing and pipe on Orange Sparkle Gel.
Sprinkle with Orange sugar.
Add Halloween Sprinkles for the stem.
And for the face, I used the Candy Eyeballs, Candy Corn for the nose, Orange M&M’s for the cheeks and the smile is Black Sparkle Gel.

Candy Corn

Frosting with white icing.
Fit a Decorator Bag with Tip #3 and fill with white icing.
Pipe around the Candy Corn and section it into thirds.
Sprinkle bottom section with yellow sugar and the middle with orange sugar.

Monster

Frost with white icing and smooth {see notes}.
Fit a Decorator Bag with Tip #3 and fill with white icing, pipe around head.
Add Candy Eyeballs , pipe on a small white nose.
Fit a Decorator Bag with Tip #1 and fill with black icing, pipe on the mouth and hair.

Black Cat

Frost with black icing and smooth {see notes}.
Add Black Sparkle Gel around the edge of the cat, green sprinkles for the eyes.
For the nose, add a small dot of black Sparkle Gel and pipe on whiskers with Tip #1 and white icing.

Notes: To make the icing smooth, frost cookie and run an [offset spatula | http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000VM56G/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=hoosihomem-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369] under hot water to smooth

The result…Doug and the boys thought they were good, my opinion…I still like the Sugar Cookies the best, although I did like these too.