Frosted Halloween Cookies are made from a flavorful red velvet cookie base and cut into spooky shapes and decorated with royal icing for a spooktacular Halloween treat.
Sugar Cookie Season
It's that time of year again. My favorite quarter! I can't believe how quickly it gets here. Maybe I'm just getting old and forget half of the stuff that happens throughout the year, and it's what makes the year seem to fly by.
Fall also marks the start of sugar cookie season around here. We always make sugar cookies for the holidays and Halloween, but this year, I decided to mix it up a bit when contemplating Halloween cookie ideas.
For these frosted Halloween cookies, we went with a red velvet cookie. The original thought was that they would look scary, but yeah, not so much. So, plan "B," they are just yummy cookies, so why the heck not.
Ingredients in Frosted Halloween Cookies
Most of these ingredients can be found in your pantry. If you are unfamiliar with red velvet emulsion, it allows you to add both the flavor and rich red color typical of red velvet cake in one step. You can find red velvet emulsion in the specialty baking aisle at most craft and grocery stores.
Cookies
- Butter
- Sugar
- Eggs
- Red velvet emulsion
- Vanilla extract
- Dutch processed cocoa powder
- Chocolate chips
- All-purpose flour
- Baking powder
- Dry buttermilk
- Salt
Royal Icing
- Egg white
- Powdered sugar
- Water
- Coloring
Once you have decorated the cookie, it can easily take a few hours for the royal icing to dry and become smooth and hard with the matte finish. Be patient. Also, this icing doesn't work so well in humidity. If you are in a very humid place, be cautious and extremely patient.
Halloween Cookie Icing
We decorated these Halloween cookies with royal icing. It's not very hard to do or work with, but it takes a wee bit of practice. We had a few experimental errors with frosting the skeleton. I want to share that it is ok to trace your cookie onto parchment paper and try out your decorations without wasting a cookie. Or in our case, we even turned the cookie over and decorated the back for practice if we found we had an ugly cookie that wasn't going to make the cut.
Royal icing can be made in one of two ways. One with egg whites, the other with meringue powder. The power can be found at pretty much any craft store in the cake baking section. I prefer the one with egg whites because I think the flavor is better, but using meringue powder is just as easy if you want to go that route.
This is the royal icing recipe we used in these Halloween cookies. Now, if you want the icing thicker, add a bit more powdered sugar. If you want it thinner, add a tiny bit of water. We colored the icing with gel colors that can be found at any craft store right next to the meringue powder.
Royal icing with egg white:
1 large egg white
1 ½ cups powdered sugar, sifted
3 tablespoons of water
Coloring
In the bowl of your stand mixer, add egg whites and powdered sugar. Beat on low speed until combined. Add your coloring. Use sparingly. For instance, a tiny drop on the end of a toothpick would be all the color you probably need. Stir until you have the color you want. If it is too thick, add a few drops of water to thin it out a bit. If it is too thin, add a ¼ teaspoon powdered sugar until it is the thickness you want. Put it in a piping bag and you have all you need to start decorating.
More Halloween and Seasonal Recipes You'll Love:
I hope you enjoy these Halloween cookie ideas as much as we do and I'm sure your little goblins will love these ghoulish Halloween cookies.
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Frosted Halloween Cookies
Ingredients
Red Velvet Cookies
- 1 cup butter
- 1 ½ cups confectioner's sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon red velvet emulsion
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon Dutch processed cocoa powder
- ¼ cup chocolate chips melted
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons dry buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
Red Velvet Cookies
- Heat oven to 400°
- Cream butter and confectioner's sugar in a stand up mixer with paddle attachment.
- Add egg, mix in red velvet emulsion, vanilla, cocoa powder and melted chocolate.
- Blend in flour, baking powder, dry buttermilk, and salt.
- Mix until dough pulls away from paddle and begins to form ball. Roll out onto floured surface and cut with cookie cutter.
- Bake on parchment lined baking sheet for 9 minutes.
- Cool the cookie completely before icing. Allow the icing to set for several hours.
Notes
Nutrition
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Denisse Salinas says
There are adorable! I love the idea of red velvet in cookies rather than cake! They will surely be a big Halloween hit. And I can make them for Christmas!
serena says
I love making these at christmas! We use a snowflake cutter and decorate with white icing. Makes for a very elegant look
Lucy @ Supergoldenbakes says
I love the cute ghosts and it's so lovely you've made red velvet as the base for these spooky cookies.
serena says
Loved working with the red velvet, it was a nice change from traditional sugar cookies
Julie says
Those little skeletons are so cute! My husband is a radiologist, so skeletons are appropriate year-round for us - I will have to make some for his medical students and residents. 🙂
serena says
Too funny! Yep, year round cookies for you guys 🙂
Shadi Hasanzadenemati says
Cute cookies! I bet this would be so much fun to do with kids!
serena says
Definitely! The kids would love this.
Stephanie@ApplesforCJ says
These are so cute. Perfect treats for a Halloween get together 🙂
serena says
Thanks so much!