The Season for Sugar

A couple of weeks ago I got impatient for Halloween to come so I tried to hurry it along. I consulted the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook for inspiration. SP and I decided to tackle cut out cookies.

Lady Di has a killer set of cookie cut outs for every season.

I think another reason I wanted to make cookies was to actually see these bad boys in action instead of just sitting in the cut out tote in the cupboard.

We got all of the Halloween cut outs ready. Frankenstein Head, ghost, pumpkin, bat, cat and skeleton. The skeleton cut out was actually a gingerbread man. But with some creative frosting, bones and skulls appeared.

SP and I teamed up to take on the recipe. I read the ingredients and measurements. SP measured and mixed. She even cracked her own egg. I still have trouble keeping the shells out.

After mixing the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients I put the dough in the fridge to wait of three hours.

"What?!", cried SP.

"You have to let the dough sit to rise or age or just let the ingredients get to know each other well and get their cookie game plan figured out. Or something like that.", I informed her. "It just says so in the cookbook."

It was also a learning experience for me. I have cut out cookies before but I have never actually prepared cookie dough before. I was surprised to find out that the recipe didn't include opening a tube. But using the mixer was quite fun. Did you know that raising the mixer above the bowl while set on high will fling dough quite a ways? I also learned too late that you need to put flour on everything unless you want dough sticking to everything. It stuck to my hands, the roller, the cutting board and the spatula. Luckily, the dough stuck to itself and kept the shape it was cut into and out came Halloween cookies.

We found out that the larger the cut out, the fewer cookies came out of the dough. So once a Frankenstein head and a ghost were cut, the remaining dough got filled up with smaller bat patterns. We ended up with a whole caveful of bats.

The next step was even more fun and more sticky. The frosting.

Lady Di set up the most vivid orange, green and black frosting. We also got out the orange and black sprinkles. The first few cookies received much artistic attention to detail from the kids. Then when they saw the large pile left to frost, many cookies only earned one color of frosting each. Once the pile of cookies dwindled to only a few, the kids were tired of frosting and these cookies got a glob of each color of frosting to empty the bowls and swirled them all together producing an olive green brownish shade befitting the holiday.

Here's a sample of our creations. They range from cookies with a half inch of frosting and sprinkles to the duck shaped cookie on the right with one black frosting dot for an eye.

Once our desserts were prepared, we all enjoyed one cookie of our choosing. They were so good we treated ourselves to another. The rest found their way to the freezer. For some reason, once the cookies retired to the freezer, the kids completely forgot about them. So just to make sure they didn't spoil, I checked in on them regularly for the past two weeks.

Which necessitates the preparation of a new batch today.

Happy Early Halloween.