Description
Delight in these festive Halloween Sugar Cookies, a soft and creamy treat perfect for celebrating the spooky season. Made from a classic sugar cookie dough enhanced with sour cream for extra moisture and topped with colorful buttercream frostings, these cookies are fun to decorate and delicious to eat. Perfect for holiday parties or family baking sessions, they bring a playful twist to traditional sugar cookies with simple and vibrant frosting designs inspired by pumpkins, ghosts, and candy corn.
Ingredients
Scale
Cookie Dough
- 1 cup butter, at room temperature
- 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
- 2 eggs, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 cup sour cream
- 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
Buttercream Frosting
- 3/4 cup butter
- 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 3-4 tablespoons heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Orange and yellow food coloring (optional, for decoration)
- 2 candy eyes (optional, for ghost decoration)
Instructions
- Prepare the cookie dough: In a large bowl, beat together the butter and granulated sugar until creamy and smooth. Add in the eggs, vanilla extract, almond extract, and sour cream, mixing until all ingredients are fully combined.
- Combine dry ingredients: In a separate bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, and fine sea salt until evenly mixed. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring just until a dough forms without overmixing.
- Chill the dough: Divide the dough into two portions and wrap each tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours to firm up the dough, which will make rolling and cutting easier.
- Shape the cookies: Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). On a floured surface or parchment paper, roll out the chilled dough to your desired thickness, adding a little extra flour if the dough is sticky. Use Halloween-themed cookie cutters to cut out shapes and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Bake the cookies: Bake for 8 to 9 minutes or until the bottoms are barely golden. Avoid overbaking to keep the cookies soft and tender. Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Make the buttercream frosting: In a medium bowl, beat the butter, powdered sugar, heavy cream, and vanilla extract together with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy. Divide the frosting into two or three bowls depending on how many colors you want to create.
- Color and decorate: Leave one bowl of frosting white for the ghost cookies. Add orange food coloring to another bowl for pumpkin cookies. For candy corn cookies, divide frosting into three parts and tint them yellow, orange, and leave white. Once cookies are completely cooled, frost each cookie accordingly. Add candy eyes for ghosts to complete the look.
Notes
- These Halloween sugar cookies are a whimsical variation of classic soft sugar cookies, perfect for celebrations or family baking projects.
- Chilling the dough is crucial for easier rolling and to help maintain the shapes during baking.
- Be careful not to overbake the cookies to keep them soft rather than crunchy.
- Customize your frosting colors and decorations to match any Halloween theme or preference.
- This recipe yields approximately 30 cookies depending on the size of your cutters.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 202 kcal
- Sugar: 12 g
- Sodium: 159 mg
- Fat: 8 g
- Saturated Fat: 5 g
- Unsaturated Fat: 2 g
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 29 g
- Fiber: 1 g
- Protein: 3 g
- Cholesterol: 31 mg
