Description
Spooky Ghost Cookies are festive sugar cookies perfect for Halloween or any spooky occasion. These buttery, soft cookies are cut into ghost shapes, baked to golden edges, and decorated with smooth white and black royal-like icing to create fun ghostly faces. The recipe combines a classic sugar cookie dough with a simple homemade icing that hardens beautifully for easy decorating and stacking.
Ingredients
Scale
For the cookie dough
- 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for surface
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 Tbsp milk
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
For sugar cookie icing
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup light corn syrup
- 1/4 cup milk, plus more for thinning
- 1/4 tsp almond (or vanilla) extract
- Black food coloring
Instructions
- Mix Dry Ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and kosher salt until well combined.
- Prepare Dough: In another large bowl, beat softened butter and granulated sugar together until creamy. Add the egg, milk, and vanilla extract, and beat until fully incorporated. Gradually add the dry flour mixture, mixing until just combined. Shape the dough into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 1 hour to firm up.
- Roll and Cut Cookies: Preheat oven to 350ºF (175ºC) and line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. Lightly flour a clean surface and roll out the chilled dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Use a ghost-shaped cookie cutter to cut out cookies. Re-roll scraps as needed to make more cookies. Transfer cookie shapes to the prepared baking sheets and freeze for 10 minutes to help them hold their shape during baking.
- Bake Cookies: Bake the cookies until the edges are lightly golden, about 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.
- Make Icing: While cookies cool, prepare the icing. In a medium bowl, combine powdered sugar, light corn syrup, 1/4 cup milk, and almond extract. Stir until smooth.
- Prepare Black Icing: Transfer about one-quarter of the icing into a small bowl and tint with black food coloring until a deep black color is reached.
- Outline Cookies: Fit a piping bag with a small round tip and fill it with half of the white icing. Pipe an outline around the edges of each cookie.
- Fill Cookies: Thin the remaining white icing by adding milk, one teaspoon at a time, until it flows easily but is not too runny. Fill another piping bag with this thinned white icing and fill in the centers of each cookie. Use a toothpick to pop any air bubbles and spread icing evenly to fill gaps. Allow icing to set and dry for 15 minutes.
- Add Faces: Fill a piping bag with the black icing, fitted with a small round tip, and pipe eyes and mouths onto the white icing of each ghost cookie, creating spooky or playful expressions.
Notes
- Freezing the cookies before baking helps maintain their shape and prevents spreading.
- Use a light hand when adding milk to thin the icing to avoid making it too runny.
- Let the icing fully dry to prevent smudging when stacking or storing cookies.
- Almond extract in the icing adds a subtle depth of flavor but can be substituted with vanilla extract.
- Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 150
- Sugar: 12g
- Sodium: 80mg
- Fat: 7g
- Saturated Fat: 4g
- Unsaturated Fat: 2g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 20g
- Fiber: 0.5g
- Protein: 2g
- Cholesterol: 25mg
