I love Halloween so much and this year i’ve been baking lots of spooky treats to celebrate with, including these adorable Ginger Sugar Cookies i posted on my instagram last week! Loads of you left comments and tweeted asking for the recipe so i just had to share with a little tutorial…and you won’t believe how easy they are to make!
What you need:
- 170g unsalted butter (at room temperature)
- 150g Granulated Sugar
- 1 Large Egg (at room temperature)
- 2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
- 281g Plain Flour
- 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon of Ground Ginger
How:
1. Combine your sugar and softened butter in a large bowl using a wooden spoon and electric whisk until creamed together
2. Whisk in your egg and vanilla extract
3. In a separate bowl mix together your flour, baking powder and ginger until combined and whisk half of your flour into the butter mixer
4. Add the rest of the flour and mix until combined to create your cookie dough! If your dough is too sticky to handle add a little more flour until you’re able to take out of the bowl and roll easily
5. Wrap your dough in clingfilm and place in the fridge to chill for at least an hour – it’s essential your dough is nice and cold before you start to roll and cut. You can even pop it in the freezer for half an hour if you’re in a rush or too impatient like me…just don’t forget it’s in there!
6. Roll out your dough to around 1/4 of an inch thick and cut your spooky shapes ( i got my cutters from Hobbycraft for £1 each!) and place well spaced out on a baking tray
7. Bake your cookies at 1800c/gas mark 4 for around 20 minutes or until they start to turn golden at the edges
8. Pop them on a wire rack to cool completely before you start to ice
I iced my cookies with Royal Icing coloured with orange, green and black gel food colouring which is really simple to do. You can use a piping bag (which i did for the details) but i find outlining and flooding my cookies much easier using squeezy bottles like those above from Hobbycraft. Simply mix your icing as per pack instructions, split the mixture and dye to the shade you want before pouring into your squeezy bottles and piping on! Draw an outline leaving a boarder of cookie to prevent your icing running and then ‘flood’ the centre by piping some mixture onto your cookie inside the boarder and spreading it out with a toothpick. Once your main colour is dry then you can add details with your piping bag like my spooky ghost faces and pumpkin stalks – be as creative and as detailed as you like! I also sprinkled on orange sugar crystals to my pumpkins before the main icing dried to give them a bit of Halloween sparkle. Leave to set overnight so you don’t smudge your designs and your cookies will keep for around a week if stored in an airtight container.
My Ginger Spiced Spooky Cookies went down a storm – they’re sweet, soft, slightly crunchy with just enough gingery spice and they look almost too cute to eat!
Be sure to tweet me a picture of your cookies if you give my recipe a go @xameliax #spookycookies
Happy Baking!
xax