Description
These Halloween Sugar Cookies are soft, buttery, and festive treats perfect for spooky celebrations. The dough is enriched with sour cream for extra tenderness and shaped using Halloween-themed cutters. Topped with creamy buttercream frosting in vibrant colors, these cookies bring a delightful mix of flavor and fun to your holiday parties.
Ingredients
Scale
Cookie Dough
- 1 cup butter, at room temperature
- 1 ¾ cups granulated sugar
- 2 eggs, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract
- 1 cup sour cream
- 5 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
Frosting
- ¾ cup butter
- 3 ½ cups powdered sugar
- 3-4 tablespoons heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Prepare the dough: In a large bowl, cream together the butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, vanilla extract, almond extract, and sour cream until fully combined.
- Combine dry ingredients: In a separate bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, and fine sea salt.
- Mix dough: Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing just until all ingredients are incorporated to avoid overworking the dough.
- Chill dough: Divide the dough into two equal parts, wrap each in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours to firm up.
- Preheat oven and roll dough: Once chilled, preheat your oven to 350°F (177°C). Roll out the dough on a baker’s mat or parchment paper, sprinkling an additional ¼ to ½ cup of flour if the dough is sticky to make it easier to handle.
- Cut shapes and bake: Use floured Halloween-themed cookie cutters to cut shapes from the dough. Place them on a baking sheet and bake for 8 to 9 minutes, or until the bottoms are just turning golden. Avoid overbaking.
- Cool cookies: Remove cookies from the oven and allow them to cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Make frosting: In a medium bowl, combine butter, powdered sugar, heavy cream, and vanilla extract. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy.
- Color frosting: Divide the frosting into 2-3 bowls. Leave one bowl white for ghost cookies, tint one bowl orange for pumpkin cookies, and if making candy corn cookies, divide into three bowls adding yellow to one for the candy corn effect.
- Decorate cookies: Once the cookies have cooled, frost pumpkin-shaped cookies with orange frosting. Frost ghost-shaped cookies with white frosting and add candy eyes. For candy corn cookies, frost the tip with white, the middle with orange, and the top with yellow frosting to mimic candy corn colors.
Notes
- Ensure butter and eggs are at room temperature for easier mixing and better texture.
- Do not overmix the dough once dry ingredients are added to keep cookies tender.
- Refrigerating the dough is important to make rolling and cutting easier and helps cookies hold their shape.
- Watch baking time closely; overbaking will dry out the cookies.
- Use gel food coloring for vibrant frosting colors that won’t affect frosting consistency.
- These cookies keep well in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 180
- Sugar: 16g
- Sodium: 90mg
- Fat: 9g
- Saturated Fat: 5g
- Unsaturated Fat: 3g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 24g
- Fiber: 0.5g
- Protein: 2g
- Cholesterol: 30mg
