How to make ghost cookies for Halloween

Ghost-shaped cookies for Halloween

for the cookies

Ingredients

• 200g sugar
• 225g warm butter or margarine
• 400g of flour
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla flavouring,
• 2 teaspoons of bitter almond aroma,
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Ghost-shaped cookie cutters,

To decorate the cookies

• White food coloring,
• Prepared for Royal Icing,
• Chocolate flavor pastry pencil,

How to make ghost cookies for Halloween

To prepare the dough for these  ghost-shaped Halloween cookies , beat the butter with the sugar in a bowl and then add the egg, the vanilla flavoring and the almond flavoring and mix everything together.

In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and salt, and add it little by little to the previous mixture until you have a homogeneous dough.

With the dough we form a ball and with the help of a rolling pin we knead and stretch on a flat floured surface. The dough must be at least 3mm thick. If the dough is very sticky, we can add some flour until it is easier to work with.

Meanwhile we prepare two baking trays with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 175° with the fan on as this way we can bake the two trays of cookies at the same time.

With the  cookie mold in the shape of a ghost we are shaping our cookies. If we don’t have a ghost-shaped mold, we can make it by hand with a knife and a little imagination.

Place the cookies on the oven trays and bake them for about 10 minutes. Once the 10 minutes have passed, remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool.

For the glaze we have different options depending on the ingredients we have available and the time and desire we have, the important thing is not that they come out perfect but that we have a good time as a family and the children also enjoy the decoration process.

We have chosen to make a glaze with a royal icing preparation , as this saves us some time and work, and the result is very good. To do this you just have to follow the instructions of the royal icing preparation and then with the white food coloring  give it the desired color.

For best results, it is recommended to separate the royal icing into two containers and prepare one icing with a firmer consistency and another icing with a more fluid consistency by gradually adding a few drops of water.

Once we have the two icings, we fill two pastry bags, one of them with a thin nozzle with the harder royal icing and another with a thicker nozzle for the royal icing with the most fluid consistency.

First we outline the outline of the cookie with the firm consistency icing. Once we have the outline ready, with the pastry bag with the filling icing we fill from the center to the edges.

We can help ourselves with a toothpick to fill all the parts well and once the icing is well distributed, shake the cookie a little so that the icing levels out, and let it dry. For the royal icing to dry completely, a minimum of 8 hours must pass and preferably 24 hours.

If you want to see the process in more detail or even want to prepare your own royal icing with pasteurized egg whites, we recommend reading  this article  where we give you all the details and secrets to decorate cookies with royal icing .

If decorating cookies with royal icing seems intimidating or you don’t have the time or the necessary ingredients, you can opt for a simpler icing by mixing 100 grams of icing sugar with 4 or 5 tablespoons of warm water until you have a glaze consistent. Then we can add the white food coloring so that it takes on the desired color and decorate the ghost cookies .

Once the royal icing or our icing sugar icing has completely dried, we can finish decorating the cookies with a chocolate flavored pastry pencil  and paint eyes and mouths on our ghosts.

If you are going to decorate the cookies with children , we recommend that each one has their own cookies to decorate and let them decorate them to their liking, the results will not always be perfect but they will have a great time and it is a nice activity to enjoy with the family .