Halloween has long been thought of as an American tradition. It is, however, becoming increasingly popular around the world and it gives parents a great reason to get baking! With so many sweets and chocolates making the rounds, some home baked cookies make for a delicious, wholesome change.
The first thing that you need to remember is to choose one or two of your favourite cookie recipes. Shortbread and chocolate chip are two of the most popular choices. Once you have your cookie dough all ready, it’s time to put your cookie cutters to work. If you are feeling particularly creative, you can even cut them by hand. Since cookie cutters are not available in certain shapes, hand cutting is a must in such cases.
When choosing fun shapes and colours, here are some great ideas:

  • Ghost shapes covered with white icing and decorated with black eyes and a spooky mouth
  • Cat-shaped cookies covered with black icing
  • Flying bats covered with black icing
  • Pumpkin-shaped cookies covered with orange icing
  • Colourful ghosts (like the ghosts in the Pacman game) with funny eyes. Use a white paste topped with a black dot to make the eyes.
  • Cookies in the shape of bones served with chocolate sauce for dipping. The chocolate sauce is reminiscent of blood.
  • Gingerbread men cane be decorated with white icing to make them look like dancing skeletons. In fact, if you’re not a fan of gingerbread, you can use any cookie recipe you prefer.
  • Make regular round cookies and dip half in white chocolate and the other half in milk chocolate. Once set, draw a white chocolate web on the milk chocolate side and draw a little spider with milk chocolate on the white chocolate half. The spider should appear to be walking or resting on the web.
  • Make your own cookie spider by baking some chocolate cookies and sticking two together with frosting. Add shoestring black licorice for the legs and a couple of small red sweets or small pieces of glazed cherry for the eyes.

When making cookies for Halloween, the most important thing is to let your imagination run wild! Colour plays a huge role in these cookie designs so, even if you need to stick to a bit of a tight budget, food colouring is where you don’t want to cut corners.