Halloween Sugar Cookie Cut-Outs

These are the best sugar cookies for rolling & cutting.  I love the fact that I don't have to chill the dough too.  I use this dough all through the year for making cut-out sugar cookies.  It's not an overly sweet dough so after frosting your teeth won't ache from sugar overload either.  It's also makes a nice sturdy cookie to decorate. I need to work on my decorating skills.  I really want to learn to decorate cookies with Royal Icing.  Maybe I can try it out with Christmas cookies.

Here is the recipe so you can try making some yourself.

Soft Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup margarine or shortening
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 5 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup milk or buttermilk
• 5 cups flour

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Cream together margarine and sugar in a large bowl. In a seperate bowl mix salt, nutmeg, baking powder and flour together. Add to sugar & margarine mixture, alternating with buttermilk. Mix throughly.
• Do not use flour to roll out (I place between 2 sheets of parchment paper). Cut out cookies with cookie cutter and bake for 8-10 minutes

I frosted these with store bought cream cheese frosting & used chocolate chips for the eyes. You can certainly make your own frosting if you would like.

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Halloween Sugar Cookie Cut-Outs

Candy Corn Cookies

I made these cookies using a sugar cookie dough recipe.  I replaced some of the sugar with honey in hopes of giving it a real candy corn flavor.  They still tasted like sugar cookies though and the dough really browned up quickly due to the addition of honey.  I used gel coloring to dye the cookie dough orange and yellow.  I'm really not going to bother giving you my whole recipe for these since I didn't like the way they turned out this time.  If I make them again I will either follow the directions on the Betty Crocker website or I'll leave out the honey and use a sweet sugar cookie dough recipe.

Candy Corn Cookies

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Carving pumpkins or making pumpkin puree? Don't throw out those seeds!  This is the best part of the pumpkin if you ask me. :)  There is a trick to getting your pumpkin seeds to be salty boil the seeds in salted water first, and then toast them in the oven.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Ingredients

• One medium sized pumpkin
• Salt
• Olive oil

Directioms

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut open the pumpkin and use a strong metal spoon to scoop out the insides.Separate the seeds from the stringy core. Rinse the seeds.
2. In a small saucepan, add the seeds to water, about 2 cups of water to every half cup of seeds. Add a half tablespoon of salt for every cup of water (more if you like your seeds saltier). Bring to a boil. Let simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and drain.
3. Spread about a tablespoon of olive oil over the bottom of a roasting pan. Spread the seeds out over the roasting pan, all in one layer. Bake on the top rack until the seeds begin to brown, 10-20 minutes. When browned to your satisfaction, remove from the oven and let the pan cool on a rack. Let the seeds cool all the way down before eating. Either crack to remove the inner seed (a lot of work and in my opinion, unnecessary) or eat whole.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Halloween Caramel Corn

It wouldn't be Halloween at our house without caramel corn (or Christmas for that matter). I love making this. Something about the whole process of making the caramel and smelling the caramel corn cook that is so yummy.  You can add peanuts or anything else you like to this, we like it as plain ol'caramel corn though.

Caramel Corn

Ingredients

• 7 quarts plain popped popcorn
• 2 cups dry roasted peanuts (optional)
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup margarine
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Place the popped popcorn into two shallow greased baking pans. You may use roasting pans, jelly roll pans, or disposable roasting pans. Add the peanuts to the popped corn if using. Set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F (120 degrees C). Combine the brown sugar, corn syrup, margarine and salt in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring enough to blend. Once the mixture begins to boil, boil for 5 minutes while stirring constantly.
3. Remove from the heat, and stir in the baking soda and vanilla. The mixture will be light and foamy. Immediately pour over the popcorn in the pans, and stir to coat. Don't worry too much at this point about getting all of the corn coated.
4. Bake for 1 hour, removing the pans, and giving them each a good stir every 15 minutes. Line the counter top with waxed paper. Dump the corn out onto the waxed paper and separate the pieces.Allow to cool completely, then store in airtight containers or resealable bags.

Halloween Caramel Corn

Sorta Healthy Mini M&M Cookies

Years ago I bought one of those cookbooks you can buy at the check out of the grocery store.  In that book there was the best recipe for M&M® oatmeal raisin cookies. It made huge cookies.  I think it was called lunchbox cookies or something similar anyhow.  I had kept that book forever, even the cover was missing from it and I loved making those cookies.  Flash forward a couple of years and I can not find that cookbook anywhere in my house.  I am so disappointed.  I tried looking on line for the recipe, but since I can't remember what company published the cookbook I haven't been able to find it.

I did find a recipe that sounded sort of similar on the M&M® website.  They are very good, but they aren't that recipe. I don't know, maybe it had something to do with the fact that I tried to healthy these cookies up a bit.  I guess it doesn't matter too much because the kids are eating them up! :)

M&M Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

adapted from the M&M Gift Jar Cookie Mix recipe.

Ingredients:
1 stick of unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup (169g) firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
3/4 teaspoon (3.75mL) vanilla extract
3/4 cup (169g) whole wheat flour
1-1/4 cups (281g) uncooked oats (I used quick)
1/2 teaspoon (2.5mL) baking soda
1/2 teaspoon (2.5mL) salt
1/2 teaspoon (2.5mL) ground cinnamon
1 cup (225g) Mini M&M’S®
1/2 cup (113g) raisins

Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C).

In a large bowl cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy; beat in egg and vanilla until well blended.

In a medium bowl combine flour, oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon; blend into creamed mixture.

Stir in Mini M&M’S® and raisins.

Roll into 1-inch balls and place about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 12 to 15 minutes, or just until edges begin to brown. Cool 2 minutes on cookie sheets; cool completely on wire racks. Store in tightly covered container.

Makes 4 dozen cookies

Notes:

• Next time I make these I would double the dough ingredients and leave the quanities of M&M'S® and raisins.
• Original recipe calls for 1 and 1/2 sticks of butter.  I thought it was fine with just one stick though.
• Original recipe also calls for all-purpose flour and I used all whole wheat. Usually I do half and half but they turned out fine with all whole wheat.

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Sorta Healthy Mini M&M Cookies