I’ve been missing again and this time round it’s been really really busy and all for the love of baking. I’ve finally launched The Bakery Witch going beyond the blog and taking orders for parties and events. These past few weeks have been busy fulfilling orders and planning and organising my time with a full time job. I have to say it’s been a thrilling experience so far, it great getting genuine reviews and thinking on how to improvise for the next batch/order and creating something out of nothing.
It’s late now, and we’ve just missed Halloween, but I still wanted to post this out for ideas. There’s a lot more that I have done beyond Halloween Cookies this Halloween, I promise to share some graveyard cupcakes and Witch Hat cupcakes made, but it all seems a bit irrelevant now so will start putting up ideas for Christmas soon.
Over the past 2 weeks I’ve made over 350 Halloween cookies and my advice would be start early and don’t bake or frost in the end 🙂
I’m trying out a new cookie recipe without baking powder, it doesn’t give the cookie the additional rise, but the flour naturally rises when baking so they thicken up just right if the dough is rolled 1/4 inch thick. I’ve also recently invested in a Josesph Jospeh rolling pin, it takes the doubt out of the rolling dough and how thick it is, saves time and is a real life saver.
A few tips which have made the whole cookie process easier:
- Roll the dough out, cut into shapes and let it set in fridge for 15-20mins
- Pop in oven for 7mins and then move to cooling rack after 5 mins
- The cookies still cook on the baking sheet once they are out of the oven, so don’t worry about it being raw
- I’ve always used flood icing and outline icing and this time round I saved time and just used one type of icing, in between Border and Flood icing. The only disadvantage is you don’t get the border on the cookie which differs from from the flood icing. After doing 300+ cookies I can tell you it looks better without in these and I’m doing the same for Christmas. So, bottom line, one frosting for border and filling and no need to wait for it all to dry and then do the filling, go for it all at once!
I’ve used the Wilton Cookie Cutters for Ghost, witch, bats and cats. I’ve drawn the ghosts eyes and outlined the witch’s face, eyes and mouth with an edible food writer (black) and used candy eyeballs for the bats and cats eyes.
Ingredients:
3C Flour
3/4C Sugar
1 egg
1 C butter (227g)
1 tsp Vanilla
Royal Icing:
4C sugar
1/2C water
1/2 tsp Vanilla
2 1/2 TBSP Meringue Powder
1 TBSP Corn Syrup
Directions:
- Mix all the cookie ingredients together in a mixer just until it comes together
- Form into a dough with your hands and make 2 flat discs out of it. Cling film and let it rest for 15-20mins
- Once ready to make the cookies, preheat oven at 180C
- Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thick, cut into desired shapes, place on baking tray lined with baking paper and put in fridge for 15 mins until set
- Pop into oven for 7mins or just until the edges of the cookie start to turn golden
- Leave on baking tray for another 5mins and then transfer to cooling rack
- While the cookies are cooling, make the royal icing.
- Mix water, vanilla, meringue powder and corn syrup until foamy in a mixer
- Add icing sugar and beat for 3-4mins on medium speed. The frosting will become glossy and thick and should fall off the whisk like a ribbon
- Cover the frosting in an airtight box or cling film the frosting and mix portions as and when needed
- Use wilton Tip#3 for border and filling, if you think 3 will be too thick and want a thinner border go with Tip #2
- For the Witch Hat Buckle, I’ve use Tip #2 as I wanted it slightly thicker, and the icing spreads a little. If you want a finer buckle use Tip # 1, the frosting will still spread but less
I frosted my ghosts first as that was the easiest and I didn’t need anymore white icing after that.
And here are the results 🙂
