Halloween Bat Sugar Cookies

Sugar cookies are the coolest cookie because you can do a million different things with them. Once you have perfected the sugar cookie recipe, the possibilities are endless: you can have unique cookies at every holiday, kids love decorating them {and the cookies are so easy to make, they can help with that part too}, and you can whip up a ton in a short amount of time if you need to be PTA bake sale supermom!

These Halloween cookies not only look adorable, but they taste so good too. They’ll be the hit of every Halloween party!

Ingredients

1 pound unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 medium eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Royal Icing

1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons meringue powder {This is what I use}
food coloring {I use Gel Food Color}

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375. In a stand mixer, cream together butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy, scraping the sides of the bowl often {you can use a hand mixer if you don’t have a stand mixer}. Add the eggs and vanilla, and stir just until blended. Slowly add in the flour about a cup at a time, pausing to scrape the sides after each cup.

Once dough has formed a ball, roll out onto floured surface {you can divide the ball into smaller portions if your counter space is limited}. This dough will not puff up once cooked, so I like to roll my dough about 1/4″ thick. Use various Halloween cookie cutters to cut out cookies. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or use silpats. Carefully transfer cookies onto baking sheets. Bake for 10 minutes, rotating pans halfway through. Cool completely on wire racks before decorating.

To make the bats, pipe black icing around the outer edge of the cookie.

Fill in the cookie completely with black icing.

Sprinkle a liberal amount of black sprinkles onto the iced cookie.

Carefully tap excess sprinkles off the cookie.

Using first white and then orange icing, pipe small eyes onto the bats head.

Let icing dry completely before plating your spooky creations.

A little intimidated by a plate full of cutely decorated cookies? This awesome book can help:

The Complete Photo Guide to Cookie Decorating

Looking to get your cookie fix? Check out more Cookie Recipes.